Family of six kill 13 in Indonesia terror attacks
A FAMILY of six, including two young daughters, killed at least 13 people and left dozens wounded in suicide bombings at three Indonesian churches yesterday.
The bombings during morning services in Surabaya were Indonesia’s deadliest terror attacks for years, as the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country grapples with home-grown militancy and rising intolerance towards religious minorities.
The bombers – a mother and father, two daughters aged nine and 12, and two sons aged 16 and 18 – were linked to the local extremist network Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) which supports Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), said Tito Karnavian, the national police chief. Local media reports said the family may have returned from Syria, where hundreds of Indonesians have flocked in recent years to fight alongside Isil.
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, Mr Karnavian said.
The father, Dita Priyanto, the JAD cell leader, 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, Mr Karnavian said.
“All were suicide attacks but the types of bombs are different,” he said.
The group, led by jailed radical Aman Abdurrahman, has been linked to several incidents, including a 2016 gun and suicide attack in the capital Jakarta that left four attackers and four civilians dead. That was the first assault claimed by Isil in southeast Asia.
Police said four suspected JAD members were killed in a shoot-out 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. Isil claimed responsibility.
Mr Karnavian said Sunday’s attacks may 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.”