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Indonesian Security Minister Wiranto is transported from a car to the emergency room after being assaulted in Pandeglang, Banten province, on October 10, 2019. Antara Foto / Weli Ayu Rejeki / via REUTERS

One of the most powerful men in Indonesia, Security Minister Wiranto was victim of a knife attack on Thursday during a trip to West Java.

Wiranto was seriously injured when he was released from a vehicle after visiting a university in Pandeglang, west of Java Island in Banten Province. The assailants, a 31-year-old man and a 21-year-old woman dressed in a dark niqab covering her face, managed to approach the minister. The man hit Wiranto with a knife, while the woman beat the police, witnesses said, and an amateur video shot on site and widely broadcast on social media.

According to the head of the intelligence services, the perpetrators of the attack are members of an organization linked to the Islamic State group. The attackers were rushed to the ground by police after the attack, according to images broadcast by the television channels.

President Joko Widodo called on Indonesians to " fight together against radicalism and terrorism ". And in fact, according to the intelligence services, the couple who were married belonged to Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), a group that had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State organization.

A week before the inauguration of President Widodo

This extremist Islamist movement is responsible for several armed attacks and suicide bombings in Jakarta in particular.

In May 2018, terrorists targeted several churches in Surabaya , the second largest city in the country, killing around 20 people. Minister Wiranto, 72, was transferred by helicopter to a military hospital in the capital, his days would not be in danger.

The attack comes a week before the inauguration of President Joko Widodo , reelected in April for a second principal.

Wiranto, the former commander-in-chief of the army, began his military career under former dictator Suharto and has become an ubiquitous figure in Indonesian politics, linking several key ministerial portfolios. Unhappy candidate twice in the presidential election, he is accused by human rights organizations of crimes against humanity in the massacres that followed the independence referendum of East Timor in 1999, but never been tried.