by WorldTribune Staff, May 14, 2018
A family of terrorists with ties to an Islamic State (ISIS) affiliate carried out bombing attacks on three Christian churches in Indonesia on May 13, killing 10 people and wounding dozens more, police said.
The six terrorists, linked to the Jamaah Anshar Daulah (JAD) group, were members of one family whose head was the leader of a terror cell in the port city of Surabaya, according to National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian.
The father of the family detonated a bomb at the Surabaya Pentecostal Church, while two male teenage relatives blew themselves up at Saint Mary Immaculate Catholic Church. In the third bombing, the family’s mother and two daughters, ages 9 and 12, detonated one or more suicide vests at the Diponegoro Indonesian Christian Church, Karnavian said.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the bombings through its Amaq propaganda agency.
The bombings come amid a marked increase in Islamic terror attacks in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim majority nation.
“Several sleeper cells have started waking up,” said Setyo Wasisto, a police spokesman. “We suspect that there’s a command from Nusakambangan for them to act,” he added, referring to the name of a prison that houses some of Indonesia’s most dangerous inmates.
Earlier on May 13, police shot and killed four suspected terrorists in a gunfight in western Java. The men were members of a pro-ISIS militant group and had been working on plans to attack the Jakarta detention center, police said.
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