The spate of bombings has rocked Indonesia, with the Islamic State group claiming the church attacks and raising fears about its influence in Southeast Asia (AFP Photo/Andy PINARIA) |
Surabaya (Indonesia) (AFP) - A family of five, including a child, carried out the suicide bombing of a police headquarters in Indonesia's second city Surabaya on Monday, police said, a day after a deadly wave of attacks on churches staged by another family.
The spate
of bombings has rocked Indonesia, with the Islamic State group claiming both
the church and police station attacks, raising fears about its influence in
Southeast Asia as its dreams of a Middle Eastern caliphate fade.
Indonesia,
which is set to host the Asian Games in just three months, has long struggled
with Islamist militancy, including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed over 200
people -- mostly foreign tourists -- in the country's worst-ever terror attack.
Security
forces have arrested hundreds of militants during a sustained crackdown that
smashed some networks, and most recent attacks have been low-level and targeted
domestic security forces.
But that
changed Sunday as a family of six -- including girls aged nine and 12 -- staged
suicide bombings of three churches during morning services in Surabaya, killing
18 including the bombers.
On Monday
members of another family blew themselves up at a police station in the city,
wounding 10.
"There
were five people on two motorbikes. One of them was a little kid," national
police chief Tito Karnavian said. "This is one family."
Indonesia
Surabaya family attacks (AFP Photo/John SAEKI)
|
An
eight-year-old girl from the family survived the attack and was taken to
hospital, while her mother, father and two brothers died in the blast, he said.
"A
martyrdom-seeking operation with an explosive-laden motorcycle hit the gate of
an Indonesian police headquarters," IS's official Amaq agency reported,
according to SITE.
The
children were likely led to their deaths without a full awareness of their fate,
said Ade Banani, of the University of Indonesia’s research centre of police
science and terrorism studies.
If a family
believed in traditional roles, the father "has the power, so everyone has
to obey", Banani said.
"The
children probably don't know what's going on or don't understand."
The father
of the church suicide bombers was a local leader in extremist network Jamaah
Ansharut Daulah (JAD) which supports IS, and the second family was also linked
to JAD.
"It
ordered and gave instructions for its cells to make a move," Karnavian
said of the Islamic State's role in the church attacks.
He added
that the bombings may have also been motivated by the arrest of JAD leaders,
including jailed radical Aman Abdurrahman, and were linked to a deadly prison
riot staged by Islamist prisoners at a high-security jail near Jakarta last
week.
Abdurrahman
has been connected to several deadly incidents, including a 2016 gun and
suicide attack in the capital Jakarta that left four attackers and four
civilians dead.
Despite
their apparent allegiance to IS, the church-bombing family were not returnees
from Syria, police said Monday, correcting their earlier statements.
However,
hundreds of Indonesians have flocked in recent years to fight alongside IS
there.
Its ambitions
have been reined in after losing most of the land it once occupied in Iraq and
Syria, and there are concerns that jihadists will now turn their focus on
establishing a base in Southeast Asia.
'Increasingly proficient'
On Sunday
evening, just hours after the church bombings, a further three people in
another family were killed and two wounded when another bomb exploded at an
apartment complex about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from Surabaya.
That
explosion appeared to have been an accidental detonation that killed a mother
and her 17-year-old child who was not identified.
The woman's
husband -- a confidante of the husband behind the church bombings, Dita
Oepriyanto -- was badly injured in the explosion.
Police said
they arrived after the explosion and shot dead the injured man, Anton
Febrianto, as he held a bomb detonator in his hand.
"When
we searched the flat we found pipe bombs, similar to pipe bombs we found near
the churches," said Karnavian.
Police said
they also shot dead four suspects,including the second-ranking member of the
JAD cell in Surabaya, in raids on houses and offices Monday while nine others
were arrested.
Indonesian
police have foiled numerous terror plots, but the coordinated nature of
Sunday's church bombings and the subsequent blasts point to more sophisticated
planning than in the past, analysts said.
"There
is definitely a growing technical proficiency," said Zachary Abuza,
Southeast Asian security expert at the National War College in Washington.
"To
pull off three near-simultaneous bombings is the hallmark of a group that is
thinking."
Abuza
questioned the police suggestion that the attacks were ordered by the IS
leadership abroad, but said it would likely boost its presence in Southeast
Asia as it fades elsewhere.
"(They're)
going to continue to benefit from operating transnationally in Southeast
Asia," he said.
#UPDATE A family of five, including a child, carried out the suicide bombing of a police headquarters in Indonesia's second city #Surabaya, police say, a day after a deadly wave of attacks on churches staged by another family https://t.co/K7zyQmf76f— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 14, 2018
No comments:
Post a Comment