INDONESIA CHURCH ATTACKS KILL 13
Suicide bombers from same family, say police
AFAMILY of six, including two young daughters, staged suicide bombings at three Indonesian churches during Sunday services yesterday, killing at least 13 people and wounding dozens in attacks claimed by the Islamic State group.
The bombings were Indonesia’s deadliest for years, as the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country grapples with homegrown militancy and rising intolerance towards religious minorities.
The bombers — a mother and father, two daughters aged 9 and 12, and two sons aged 16 and 18 — were linked to local extremist network Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) which supports IS, said national police chief Tito Karnavian.
Local media reports say they may have returned from Syria, where hundreds of Indonesians have flocked in recent years to fight alongside IS in its bid to carve out a caliphate ruled by strict Islamic law.
The mother, identified as Puji Kuswati, and her two daughters were wearing niqab face veils and had bombs strapped to their waists as they entered the grounds of the Kristen Indonesia Diponegoro Church and blew themselves up, Karnavian said.
The father, JAD cell leader Dita Priyanto, drove a bomb-laden car into the Surabaya Centre Pentecostal Church while his sons rode motorcycles into Santa Maria church, where they detonated explosives they were carrying.
“All were suicide attacks but the types of bombs were different,” Karnavian said.
Police yesterday said four suspected JAD members were killed in a shootout during raids linked to a deadly prison riot this week.
Five members of Indonesia’s elite anti-terrorism squad and a prisoner were killed in clashes that saw Islamist inmates take a guard hostage at a high-security jail on the outskirts of Jakarta. IS claimed responsibility. Karnavian said yesterday’s attacks might have been revenge for the arrest of some of JAD’s leaders and for the prison crisis which eventually saw the surrender of the radical inmates.
“The incident angered them... and there were instructions from IS in Syria, so they waited for a moment to take revenge.”
The pope offered support over “the severe attack against places of worship”, while President Joko Widodo called for Indonesians to “unite against terrorism”.
“The state will not tolerate this act of cowardice,” he said.
East Java police spokesman Frans Barung Mangera confirmed the deaths of 13 people with about 40 injured in the coordinated attacks at 7.30am.
Images showed a vehicle engulfed in flames and plumes of thick black smoke as a body lay outside the gate of Santa Maria Catholic church, with motorcycles toppled over amid the mangled debris.
In addition to the suicide blast, police experts defused two unexploded bombs at the Surabaya Centre Pentecostal Church.
The coordinated nature of yesterday’s bombings suggested a higher level of planning, analysts said.
“Recent (previous) attacks have been far less ‘professional’,” Sidney Jones, an expert on Southeast Asian terrorism and director of the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, said.