Parents, kids target churches in Indonesia, kill 7, plus selves

SURABAYA, Indonesia — Coordinated suicide bombings carried out by members of the same family struck three churches in Indonesia’s second-largest city on Sunday, police said, as the world’s most populous Muslim nation recoiled in horror from one of its worst attacks since the 2002 Bali bombings.

At least seven people plus the six family members, who included girls age 9 and 12, died in the attacks in Surabaya, police said. At least 41 people were injured in the attacks, which Indonesia’s president condemned as “barbaric.”

National police chief Tito Karnavian said that the father exploded a car bomb, two sons age 18 and 16 used a motorcycle for their attack, and the mother was with her two young daughters for her attack. The woman and the two girls were all wearing explosives, Karnavian said.

Karnavian said the family had returned to Indonesia from Syria, where until recently the Islamic State group controlled significant territory.

The 2002 bombings on the tourist island killed 202 people in one night.

Sunday’s attack sent waves of anger and disgust across the sprawling country because of its use of children.

The Southeast Asian terror network responsible for the Bali attacks was obliterated by a sustained crackdown on militants by Indonesia’s counterterrorism police, with U.S. and Australian support. A new threat has emerged in the past several years, inspired by Islamic State attacks abroad.

Experts on militant networks have warned for several years that the estimated 1,100 Indonesians who traveled to Syria to join Islamic State posed a threat if they returned to Indonesia.

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

Islamic State claimed responsibility for Sunday’s attacks in a statement by its Amaq news agency.

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

The church attacks came days after police ended a hostage-taking ordeal by imprisoned Islamic militants at a detention center near Jakarta in which six officers and three inmates died. Islamic State claimed responsibility.

Christians make up about 9 percent of Indonesia’s 260 million people.

GOVERNMENT OF SURABAYA Emergency workers respond Sunday to a blast Sunday at a Pentecostal church in Surabaya, Indonesia, site of one of three coordinated suicide attacks on churches.