Regina Leader-Post

PARIS ATTACK UNDER INVESTIGAT­ION.

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Experts on militant networks have warned for several years that the estimated 1,100 Indonesian­s who travelled to Syria to join ISIL posed a threat if they returned home.

Karnavian identified the father as Dita Futrianto and said he was head of the Surabaya cell of Jemaah Anshorut Daulah, an Indonesian militant network affiliated with ISIL that has been implicated in attacks in Indonesia in the past year. He identified the mother as Puji Kuswati.

The attacks occurred within minutes of each other, according to Surabaya police spokesman Frans Barung Mangera.

Karnavian said Futrianto drove a bomb-laden car into the city’s Pentecosta­l church.

Kuswati, with her two daughters, attacked the Christian Church of Diponegoro, he said. Based on their remains, Karnavian said the mother and daughters were all wearing explosives around their waists.

The sons rode a motorcycle onto the grounds of the Santa Maria Church and detonated their explosives there.

A witness said the woman arrived at the Diponegoro church carrying two bags.

“At first officers blocked them in front of the churchyard, but the woman ignored them and forced her way inside. Suddenly, she hugged a civilian, then (the bomb) exploded,” said the witness, a security guard who identified himself as Antonius.

At Santa Maria, a Catholic church, shattered glass and chunks of concrete littered the entrance, which was sealed off by armed police. Rescuers treated victims in a nearby field while officers inspected burned motorcycle­s in the parking lot.

A street merchant outside the church said she was thrown several meters by the blast. “I saw two men riding a motorbike force their way into the churchyard,” said the merchant, Samsia, who uses a single name. “Soon after that, the explosion happened.”

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo visited the sites and described the attacks as “very barbaric and beyond the limit of humanity.”

In Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, the Indonesian Church Associatio­n added its condemnati­on.

“We are angry,” said Gormar Gultom, an official with the associatio­n, but he urged people to let the police investigat­ion take its course.

Indonesia’s two largest Muslim organizati­ons, Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiy­ah, also condemned the attacks.

Mangera, the Surabaya police spokesman, confirmed TV reports that three people, including a child, were inside the fifth-floor flat at the time of the blast. A bomb squad was checking the building, he said, and hundreds were evacuated.

Separately, national police spokesman Setyo Wasisto said police fatally shot four suspected militants and arrested two others early Sunday in West Java towns. It wasn’t clear whether the shootings were connected to the church attacks.

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