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| Indonesia has been on high alert over attacks by militants (AFP Photo/ JUNI KRISWANTO) |
A family of six including two young daughters staged suicide bombings at three Indonesian churches during Sunday services, killing at least 13 people and wounding dozens in attacks claimed by the Islamic State group.
The
bombings at three churches in Surabaya were Indonesia's deadliest for years, as
the world's biggest Muslim-majority country grapples with homegrown militancy
and rising intolerance towards religious minorities.
A further
three people were killed and two wounded when another bomb exploded at an
apartment complex in Surabaya, Indonesia's second largest city, just hours
later, police said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
The church
bombers -- a mother and father, two daughters aged nine 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, Karnavian said.
"All
were suicide attacks but the types of bombs are different," he said of the
church attacks.
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Police and
soldiers examine a site following attacks outside the Surabaya
Centre
Pentecostal Church (AFP Photo/JUNI KRISWANTO)
|
Coordinated
attacks
The group,
led by jailed radical Aman Abdurrahman, has been linked to several deadly
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 IS in Southeast Asia.
Police on
Sunday 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 Sunday's church 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 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 told reporters in
Surabaya.
East Java
police spokesman Frans Barung Mangera confirmed the deaths of 13 people in the
church bombings, with about 40 injured in the coordinated attacks at around
7:30 am (0030 GMT).
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.
Later on
Sunday night a bomb killed three people and wounded two, all from the same
family, who occupied the fifth floor of a low-cost Surabaya apartment complex,
East Java police spokesman Frans Barung Mangera said.
"Three
people have died, two are in the hospital and one is safe," he told AFP
via Whatsapp.
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Police with
dogs examine a site following attacks outside the Surabaya Centre
Pentecostal
Church (AFP Photo/JUNI KRISWANTO)
|
The
explosion hit the apartment complex about 9 pm, local media reported, and residents
were evacuated from the building after the blast.
Yono,
tenant coordinator at the apartment block, said the family had lived there
since 2015.
'Professional' attacks
Concerns
about sectarian intolerance in Indonesia have been on the rise, with churches
targeted in the past.
Nearly 90
percent of Indonesia's 260 million people are Muslim, but there are significant
numbers of Christians, Hindus and Buddhists.
Police shot
and wounded an IS-inspired radical who attacked a church congregation outside
Indonesia's cultural capital Yogyakarta with a sword during a Sunday mass in
February. Four people were injured.
In 2000
bombs disguised as Christmas gifts and delivered to churches and clergymen
killed 19 people on Christmas Eve and injured scores more across the country.
The
archipelago nation of some 17,000 islands has long struggled with Islamic
militancy, including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people -- mostly
foreign tourists -- in the country's worst-ever terror attack.
Sunday's bombings
had the highest death toll since nine people were killed in 2009 attacks on two
luxury hotels in Jakarta.
Security
forces have arrested hundreds of militants during a sustained crackdown in
recent years that smashed some networks, and most recent attacks have been
low-level and targeted domestic security forces.
But the
coordinated nature of Sunday'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, told AFP.
