Religious Tourism

Bombings at three churches in Surabaya, in Indonesia’s East Java province, during Sunday mass on May 13 have left at least 13 people dead and many injured, with the attacks carried out by a family of suicide bombers, according to the police, reported The Straits Times.

The attacks took place at the Santa Maria Church in the Ngagel Madya area of Indonesia’s second-largest and busiest city, the Surabaya Centre Pentecostal Church and the GKI Diponegoro Church.

41 injured victims from the attacks have been sent to hospital. At least two of the injured were police officers on duty guarding the churches.

Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the ancettacks, the group’s Amaq news agency said: “Three martyrdom attacks inflicts at least 11 deaths and 41 injuries of the churches’ guards and Christians in the city of Surabaya in East Java province in Indonesia”

PHOTO: EPA-EFE

Police chief General Tito Karnavian said ISIS-affiliated terror network Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) was behind the attacks and that all of the bombers were members of the same family.

JAD, or Jemaah Ansharut Daulah, is a terror group that first became known to Indonesian ntelligence agencies in 2015, when almost two dozen extremist groups pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

A source told The Straits Times that the family is JAD founder Aman Abdurrahman’s sleeping cell. Police are hunting those who provided the bombs, the source added.

Gen Tito said two brothers, aged 18 and 16, carried out the first bombing on the Santa Maria Church. They were on a motorcycle and carried the bomb on their lap.

Their father, who was on a car, staged the second bombing at Surabaya Centre Pentecostal Church.

The third bombing, on the GKI Diponegoro Church, was carried out by the mother who had a belt bomb. She was accompanied by her two daughters, aged 9 and 12. This was the first-ever suicide bombing by a woman in Indonesia.

A planned attack on a fourth church, Cathedral Church, was foiled with the arrest of a suspected bomber.

A police bomb squad also safely detonated an unexploded bomb that was discovered at the Surabaya Centre Pentecostal Church.

The bombings all occurred at around 7a.m.

Source