JAKARTA, July 15: Indonesian anti-terrorism officers shot dead three suspected Islamic militants on Saturday in the central Java city of Yogyakarta, police said.

National police spokesman Mohammad Iqbal said the officers from the elite unit had shot the suspects after being attacked with “sharp weapons and a firearm”.

Two officers suffered arm wounds and police seized four machetes and a revolver.

Iqbal’s statement said the men were believed to be members of Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), a loose grouping of hundreds of Islamic State sympathizers that is on a U.S. State Department terrorist list.

The majority-Muslim Southeast Asian nation has faced a surge in homegrown Islamist militancy in recent years. In May, around 30 people were killed in suicide bombings in Surabaya, the deadliest attack in over a decade.

 
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