Children Deliver Bombs in Indonesia Attacks; ISIS Claims Ownership

Suicide attacks at three churches in Indonesia’s second-largest city of Surabaya, left 13 people dead and 40 wounded

A member of the police bomb squad unit examines the site of an explosion outside the Immaculate Santa Maria Catholic Church, in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia.

(Photo: Reuters)

A family of six launched suicide attacks on Christians attending Sunday services on 13 May at three churches in Indonesia's second-largest city of Surabaya, killing at least 13 people and wounding 40, officials said.

Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country, has seen a recent resurgence in homegrown militancy and police said the family who carried out Sunday's attacks were among 500 Islamic State sympathisers who had returned from Syria.

"The husband drove the car, an Avanza, that contained explosives and rammed it into the gate in front of that church," East Java police spokesman Frans Barung Mangera told reporters at the regional police headquarters in Surabaya.

The wife and two daughters were involved in an attack on a second church and at the third church “two other children rode the motorbike and had the bomb across their laps”, Mangera said.

The two daughters were aged 12 and 9 while the other two, thought to be the man's sons, were 18 and 16, police said.

Police blamed the bombings on the Islamic State-inspired group Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD).

JAD is an umbrella organisation on a US State Department terrorist list that is estimated to have drawn hundreds of Islamic State sympathisers in Indonesia.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks, in a message carried on its Amaq news agency.

Indonesian terrorism analyst Rakyan Adibrata said it was the first time children had been involved in attacks in the country.

Streets around the bombed churches were blocked by checkpoints and heavily armed police stood guard as forensic and bomb squad officers combed the area for clues.

Television footage showed one church where the yard in front was engulfed in fire with thick, black smoke billowing up. A large blast was heard hours after the attacks, which Mangera said was a bomb disposal squad dealing with a device.

Church Attacks Barbaric: Indonesian President

Indonesian President Joko Widodo said on Sunday that suicide attacks by suspected Islamist militants on the three churches were "barbaric" and ordered police to track down the perpetrators.

At a news briefing alongside Police Chief Tito Karnavian, Widodo said that in one of the attacks, two children had been used in the bombing.

"I have instructed police to look into and break up networks of perpetrators," said Widodo.

Attack Comes Days After IS Prisoners Killed 5 Officers During Jail Siege

The bombings come days after Islamist militant prisoners killed five members of an elite counter-terrorism force during a 36-hour standoff at a high security jail on the outskirts of the capital, Jakarta.

Indonesia has had some major successes tackling militancy inspired by al-Qaeda’s attacks on the United States in 2001. Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim-majority country and there has been a resurgence of Islamist activity in recent years, some of it linked to the rise of Islamic State.

The most serious incident was in January 2016 when four suicide bombers and gunmen attacked a shopping area in central Jakarta.

Churches have also been targeted previously, including near-simultaneous attacks on churches there at Christmas in 2000 that killed about 20 people.

Police ordered the temporary closure of all churches in Surabaya on Sunday, and a large food festival in the city was cancelled.

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