Indonesia links church attacks to local ISIL-inspired group – By Al Jazeera Newsroom (aljazeera.com) / May 13 2018
At least 11 killed in bombings at three churches in Surabaya, carried out by members of one family, police say.
At least 11 people have been killed in three separate attacks on churches in the Indonesian city of Surabaya, local police say. More than 40 people were wounded in the attacks.
Police spokesman Frans Barung Mangera said investigations were ongoing at the three locations.
The attacks were carried out by the members of one family, police told reporters in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second city.
“The father and one of the sons did the attack on the first church, the mother with two young children under the age of ten committed the second attack. Two younger boys around the age of 16 committed the third attack,” Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen, reporting from Surabaya, cited the city’s police chief as saying.
“Several more bombs were found in two different churches that didn’t explode,” she added.
#Jakarta: Suicide bombers attacked three #churches in Indonesia’s second-largest city of #Surabaya on Sunday, killing at least six people and wounding more than 35 others, police said.
#indonesia pic.twitter.com/vMdfOr25I6
— Arman Sabir (@ArmanSabir) May 13, 2018
A spokesperson for the country’s intelligence agency said Sunday’s bombings were suspected to have been carried out by ISIL-inspired group Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD).
Abu Bakar Bashir, JAD’s leader, pledged allegiance to ISIL in 2014. The group has committed smaller attacks in the last few years, but this is the largest and most coordinated attack in Indonesia in the last decade.
The attacks took place during Sunday morning church services.
The wife of one of the victims, said the attack took place shortly before the Sunday service was about to start.
“They were about to celebrate mass. My husband was opening doors and welcoming people,” she said.
As a result of the bombings, churches have been ordered to evacuate. For the next few days, no services will be allowed because the authorities suspect more attacks could happen.
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Bali attacks
The attacks came as a shock to Indonesia, Vaessen reported.
“Police have taken control of this militant movement that had been active 10 or 15 years ago,” she said.
In 2002, more than 200 people were killed in a string of bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali. The attack, carried out by a group with ties to al-Qaeda, targeted mostly tourists at popular nightclubs in the city of Kuta.
Since then, Indonesian police has arrested and killed hundreds of people with links to the Jemaah Islamiyah, the group responsible for those bombings.
“Police has been celebrating sort of a victory over the last couple of years and a lot of people were more relaxed now,” Vaessen said.
Writer and journalist Michael Vatikiotis told Al Jazeera a substantial number of ISIL-members might reside in Indonesia.
“After the fall of Marawi in the southern Philippines many of them [the fighters] have probably washed back into Indonesia,” Vatikiotis said.
“On top of that, there’s probably been a greater directive from whatever is left of ISIL in Iraq and Syria to start operations in Indonesia and the Philippines,” he added.
Christian minority
Sunday’s attacks have been denounced by the two largest Islamic organisations in the country, Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah.
In a statement, Nahdlatul Ulama said: “There is no place for terrorism, not here, not anywhere”.
The organisation also called on people to report any suspicious behaviour that might be related to any future attacks.
Although Indonesia prides itself on being a multi-religious country, Christians have been targeted more regularly in the last couple of years.
About 10 percent of Indonesia’s 261 million people are Christian. The country boasts the world’s largest Muslim population, about 227 million people.
