Woman with gun arrested outside Indonesian presidential palace

Authorities in Indonesia have detained a woman carrying a gun outside the presidential palace in Jakarta at a time when President Joko Widodo was not in his office, according to media reports.

Presidential official Ali Mochtar Ngabalin told the Reuters news agency the woman was apprehended at approximately 7am (00:00 GMT) on Tuesday and that she had not entered the palace compound.

The woman, who appeared to be in her twenties, was wearing a niqab – a veil worn by some Muslim women which covers the hair and lower half of the face – and was carrying a Quran when she brandished the gun near the palace, he said, adding that she was apprehended by security officers.

The Beritasatu newspaper, citing a police official, said the woman was carrying an FN pistol and had walked directly towards the security officers and pointed the gun at them.

A spokesperson for the Jakarta police said the woman was now being questioned, but it was not immediately clear what her motive was or how she had obtained the weapon.

Indonesia, which is the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country, has previously suffered attacks carried out by armed groups, sometimes targeting government officials and security forces.

Police shot dead a woman who had opened fire on officers at the national police headquarters in Jakarta on March 31 last year in an attack inspired by the ISIL (ISIS) armed group.

Indonesian authorities had already been on heightened alert at the time after a suicide bombing at a Catholic cathedral during Palm Sunday Mass left at least 20 people wounded three days earlier on Sulawesi Island.