Jakarta attack a sign of things to come

THE terrorist attack in Jakarta last week achieved little but foretells much. It signifies the renewal of an implacable religious insurgency that could cost Indonesia and the rest of the region dearly.

From the point of view of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which has claimed responsibility for the assault, there is hardly anything to boast of. Very few civilians were killed.

Thus, the attack failed the mathematics of terror, which revels in mass casualties. Almost 3,000 people died in the September 2001 attacks in the United States. More than 200 lives were lost in the Bali bombings of October 2002; more than 165 people were killed in the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai; and 130 perished in the Paris attacks of last November. Even those numbers are overshadowed by the toll of death and suffering inflicted by sectarian attacks that occur habitually in the geometry of terror stretching from Africa and West Asia to South Asia.