Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – They arrived without warning in two minibuses, brandishing clubs, swords and guns and wearing black masks. JeJe's nightclub, the most popular place for foreigners to meet in Jakarta, was packed with 600 patrons.

As people scrambled for the rear exit doors the attackers stormed inside, thrusting a gun at the chest of at least one stunned patron and smashing furniture and windows. At least two foreigners were taken outside and beaten up.

The attack early last Saturday in the increasingly lawless Indonesian capital has raised fears of a campaign of violence and intimidation against foreigners.

One group that calls itself the Anti Luxury Car Movement says it plans to vandalise, starting this week, all luxury cars in Jakarta, targeting shopping centres, office buildings, main streets and hotels.

A popular scam aimed at foreigners is to set up a road block on a busy street. Foreigners are asked to present their passports, which many of them do not carry. If a foreigner does not have one he or she is threatened with jail. But there is a way out: paying a bribe.

The targeting of foreigners coincides with violence linked to Islamic militants against whom the police and military are reluctant to take any action. For months a group calling itself the Defenders of Islam has frequently attacked nightclubs and bars in Jakarta, describing them as places of depravity. Police have failed to arrest any of them who, like the JeJe's attackers, travel in buses and appear highly organised.

Anti-Western sentiment has been on the rise in Indonesia recently, partly because of strong international criticism of the country's failure to disband pro-Jakarta militia in West Timor following the killing of three United Nations aid workers on September 6.