have you with us at this time to give us vital insight and perspective as to what s playing out right now in jakarta. we appreciate it. and do stand by with us. we may well ask you to join us again to give us more perspective for cnn security and intelligence analyst, bob baer. very interesting what he is saying there, that it looks, it smells like isis. and ultimately, you know, this is a region where, you know, they re growing fast. it may look like isis and it could very well be isis, and there are a number of reports out there that this is linked to isis in some way, but at this point, there s no official claim of responsibility. and no official came out publicly to say they believed this is linked to isis .but as bob pointed out, it does have the hallmarks very similar to the attacks carried oit in paris in december. this time, though, the death toll appears to be standing at four. one policeman and three possibly attackers. but it is an ongoing situation.
here in 2004. the marriott hotel was attacked twice. so there s usually heavy security anyway. people you have scanners at entrances of hoe tels, commercial establishments and malls. so there s a heightened awareness of a possible attack happening again here. isha? and kathy, just very quickly, the situation in the rest of the capital right now, i know you re sort of down at the scene, but what s happening? do you know away from this area right now? because there are reports of there being possibly other blasts being reported, that kind of thing. coming down on a motor bike is the fastest way to get to the area. you could feel people were on edge. people were talking about it. people were scared. and i m sure they are taking extra precautions, you know.
so far in arthis area that was attacked is cordoned off. there s heavy security around here. also you could see the city is on the edge. it s been a while since a major attack, a terrorist attack was lunched in jakarta, the kpl of jakarta. there s been several minor attacks outside, particularly in the provinces of java. where police have been in pursuit of a small group calling themselves the east indian mujah mujah mujahadeen. the police would not say for now who may be behind the attack in jakarta today. john? looking at the images we re
it. but from what i m seeing so far, i think police believe that the armed suspect may still be in this area and that s why we re seeing very heavy security and a lot of armed men in the area. kathy, you may not be able to answer this kbe, but let me ask you, do you know whether authorities were able to ev evacuate the building ahead of going in? do you know the situation? i cannot confirm that. i know that all of the stores and restaurants and commercial establishments around the area are now closed. and they re in lockdown. we don t see many civilians or any people who are standing around here. i believe that many of them have left the area. i m not sure that people are still inside the building. or the commercial establishment right behind it. isha? kathy, indonesia has been on
something of a high alert in recent weeks. with concerns of possible attacks. with that being said, what was the security posture in the capital. have we seen an increase in security measures? security presence? in upscale areas such as this one attacks to you had? there was heighten ed security. there was pursuit on a terror network but that was in sinter. and the focus of the operations were outside of jakarta. but jakarta is actually quite heavily secured. this is as a result of several major attacks here in the past ten years. we know that the embassy back