One family bombed 3 churches in Indonesia, killing 7, police say

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

At least seven people died at the churches in Surabaya along with the six family members, the youngest of whom were girls ages 9 and 12, according to police. Another 41 people were injured.

Indonesia’s president condemned the attacks as barbaric.

National police chief Tito Karnavian said the father detonated a car bomb, two sons ages 18 and 16 used a motorcycle for their attack, and the mother and her two daughters wore explosives.

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

IS claimed responsibility for the attacks in a statement carried by its Aamaq news agency. It didn’t mention families or children taking part and said there Burnt motorcycles stand outside one of the churches attacked by bombers in Surabaya, Indonesia, on Sunday. A family is thought to have bombed three churches in Indonesia’s second-largest city. were only three attackers.

Indonesia’s deadliest terrorist attack occurred in 2002, when bombs exploded on the tourist island of Bali, killing 202 people in one night, mostly foreigners. But the fact that children were involved in Sunday’s attacks in Surabaya shocked and angered the country.

Jemaah Islamiyah, the 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 recent years, inspired by IS attacks abroad.

Experts on militant networks have warned for several years that the estimated 1,100 Indonesians who traveled to Syria to join IS 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 IS 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.

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