Family carried out suicide bombings at 3 churches

Attacks were conducted with children in tow

BANDUNG, Indonesia — One suicide bomber appeared to have been disguised as a churchgoer. Another drove a Toyota minivan with a bomb to one attack site. Still another was seen in footage speeding on a scooter toward a church before an explosion is heard.

After the back-to-back bombings that targeted three churches in Surabaya, Indonesia’s secondlargest city, as worshippers gathered between services Sunday morning, the police said they had been the work of one family: a couple who had led their four children on a terror rampage that took their own lives and those of at least seven other people.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks, according to the group’s news agency, Amaq. In an initial bulletin, the group described each of the bombings as a “martyrdom” operation. In a subsequent, longer media release, the group identified three modes of attack: a car bomb, a suicide vest and a motorcycle-borne bomb.

The bombings occurred one day after a man in Paris who shouted, “God is great” in Arabic killed one person with a knife and wounded four others. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for that attack. A day later, Amaq released a cellphone video of the attacker pledging allegiance to the Islamic State and calling on fellow Islamic State supporters in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and elsewhere to carry out attacks.

More than 43 other people were wounded in the suicide bombings in Indonesia, said Frans Barung Mangera, a police spokesman. Mangera said the bombs had been detonated in different parts of the city within minutes of one another. The victims included worshippers who were entering and leaving the churches between services and two police officers, he added.

At a news conference later Sunday, Indonesia’s police chief, Tito Karnavian, said the family suspected in the attacks had recently returned from Syria: “Five hundred people were deported from Syria; among them is this family.”

He identified the attackers as Dita Oepriarto and his wife, Puji Kuswati. The police chief said two of their sons, ages 18 and 16, had also been involved. Two younger children were also seen in the company of the woman at one bombing site, the police said.

The police later disabled three bombs at the home of the suspects, officials in Surabaya said.

Surabaya, located on the eastern side of the island of Java, has a significant Christian minority that is about 11 percent of the city’s population of almost 3 million. The bombings occurred as professed followers of the Islamic State have begun to make their presence felt in Indonesia, a Muslim-majority nation that is proud of its diversity and tolerance.

The suicide bombings here and the knife attack in France came days before the start of the holy month of Ramadan, a time of prayer for the majority of the world’s Muslims and a period when groups like ISIS typically intensify and multiply attacks.

Analysts have been waiting for the start of Ramadan, which begins Tuesday, to assess the Islamic State’s capabilities. They argue that if the group is able to carry out significant attacks, as it did during Ramadan over the previous three years, it would indicate that the group remained a potent threat, despite its territorial losses.

On Sunday evening, hundreds of people gathered at the Heroes Monument in Surabaya to mourn bombing victim, and officials announced that public schools in the city would be closed Monday.