A family of six who carried out three church bombings in the Indonesian city of Surabaya had returned from Syria, according to police. The attacks on Sunday killed at least 13 people and injured more than 40 others. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility.
National police chief Tito Karnavian said the family belonged to Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), an IS-inspired network. Police identified the father as Dita Oepriarto, described as the head of a local JAD cell. His wife, Puji Kuswati, and two daughters aged nine and 12 blew themselves up at Diponegoro Indonesian Christian Church. The father launched a bomb-laden car into Surabaya Centre Pentecostal Church, while two sons aged 16 and 18 rode motorcycles into Santa Maria Catholic Church and detonated explosives.
President Joko Widodo, visiting the scene of one of the attacks, described them as "barbaric" and ordered police to "look into and break up networks of perpetrators". Police said the family were among hundreds of Indonesians who had returned from Syria, where IS has been fighting government forces, though no details were given about their alleged involvement in that conflict.
Later on Sunday, another bomb exploded at an apartment complex in Surabaya, killing three people. East Java's police chief, Mahfud Arifin, said those killed were the perpetrators, not victims, and it was not known if the bombing was connected to the other attacks. Police also said they killed four suspected JAD members in Cianjur, West Java, and arrested two others. On Monday morning, a vehicle bomb struck a police station in Surabaya, injuring some officers.
The bombings are the deadliest in Indonesia in more than a decade. The country previously suffered major attacks, including the 2002 Bali bombings which killed over 200 people, and a series of other bombings in subsequent years. Indonesia had been widely praised for its anti-terrorism crackdown, but the rise of IS overseas has invigorated loosely constituted jihadi networks, according to the BBC's Rebecca Henschke in Jakarta.
