A series of blasts, which included at least one suicide bombing, struck
churches in Indonesia on Sunday, killing at least 11 people and wounding dozens
in the deadliest attack for years in the world’s biggest Muslim-majority
country.
The
nation has been on high alert following attacks by homegrown militants,
including some claimed by the Islamic State group, as it grapples with rising
intolerance towards religious minorities.
No
one has yet claimed responsibility for the bombings during Sunday services in
Indonesia’s second-biggest city Surabaya.
East
Java police spokesman Frans Barung Mangera confirmed the deaths of 11 people
with 41 injured after three churches were hit by apparently coordinated attacks
around 7:30 am (0030 GMT).
TV
footage appeared to show a person on a motorcycle driving into the grounds of
one church before a bomb went off seconds later.
Televised
eyewitness reports suggested that one suicide bomber was a veiled woman with a
couple of children in tow.
Police
have not confirmed details about the suspects and it was not clear what
happened to the children after the blast.
Other
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 debris.
“I
was frightened… many people were screaming,” 23-year-old witness Roman told AFP
after the blast at Santa Maria.
Police
experts disarmed two unexploded bombs at the Gereja Pantekosta Pusat Surabaya
(Surabaya Centre Pentecostal Church), which was also hit by a live blast.
Also
targeted was the Kristen Indonesia Diponegoro Church.
The
attacks came just days after 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.
The
Islamic State group claimed responsibility for that incident although police
denied its involvement.
Police
on Sunday said four suspected members of the radical group Jamaah Anshar Daulah
had been killed in a shootout during raids linked to the prison riot, but would
not comment on whether the group was connected to Sunday’s bombings.
Nearly
90 percent of Indonesia’s 260 million people are Muslim, but there are
significant numbers of Christians, Hindus and Buddhists.
Concerns about sectarian intolerance have been on the rise, with churches
targeted in the past.
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 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.
The
emergence of IS has proved a potent new rallying cry for radicals, sparking
fears that homegrown extremist outfits could get a new lease of life.
A
gun and suicide attack in the capital Jakarta left four attackers and four
civilians dead in 2016, and was the first assault claimed by IS in Southeast
Asia.
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