Indonesian policeman killed by sword-wielding militant

The attacker also injured another officer before being shot dead

A general view of the Sudirman street during a coronavirus-enforced lockdown in Jakarta. AFP

A sword-wielding man killed an Indonesian policeman and critically injured another on Monday in what authorities described as a suspected ISIS-linked attack.

The attacker was shot dead during the early morning raid at a police post in South Daha district on Kalimantan, Indonesia's section of Borneo island.

Indonesia's national police initially said there were two attackers, but local authorities later said only one extremist was directly involved.

"One police officer was killed and the attacker also died," South Hulu Sungai police chief Dedy Eka Jaya told AFP.

"We're still investigating possible links" to ISIS, he said.

The attacker, identified as Abdurrahman, a 19-year-old local, initially set fire to a car outside the police post, Mr Jaya said.

"When it exploded, one of the officers came outside to check and that's when the initial attack started," he said.

Images from the scene showed an apparently deceased man lying on his back inside the police station.

Authorities said they confiscated his sword, a Quran and a handwritten letter calling for violence.

Indonesia has long struggled with extremism and is home to dozens of radical groups that have pledged loyalty to the group's violent ideology.

Monday's incident happened on a public holiday that celebrates the Southeast Asian archipelago's pluralist democracy, and many past attacks have been against police and other state symbols.

In April, a couple with links to ISIS went on trial for a failed assassination attempt on Indonesia's former chief security minister last year.

The pair were allegedly members Jamaah Ansharut Daulah an ISIS-linked extremist group responsible for a string of attacks, including suicide bombings at churches in Indonesia's second-biggest city Surabaya in 2018 that killed a dozen people.

In November, an ISIS-linked suicide bomber killed himself and wounded six others in a police station attack on Sumatra island.