Indonesian officers stand guard outside the Surabaya police HQ which was hit by a suicide bombing on Monday morning
At least ten people were injured died in a suicide bomb attack at a police station in Surabaya on Monday morning, following a wave of blasts in the Indonesian city on Sunday.
Harrowing footage caught on a CCTV camera shows the moment the bomb was detonated as a scooter carrying two people approached a checkpoint at the entrance to the city’s police headquarters at 8.50am, flattening officers, and damaging a car.
The attack follows a series of devastating bombings at three churches on Sunday morning, killing 13, including an eight year old child, and injuring 43.
In a horrific twist, the church suicide blasts were carried out by a family of six – a couple and their four children aged between nine and 18.
According to the police and eyewitnesses, the mother, Puji Kuswati, tried to force her way into the Indonesia Christian Church with her two daughters, aged 12 and 9, and triggered an explosive when she was stopped by security.
Police at the site of one of three suicide bombings at churches in Surabaya on Sunday Credit: Andy Pinaria /AFP
The father, Dita Oepriarto, along with his two teenage sons, 18 and 16, attacked two other churches using bombs in a Toyota van and on a motorbike. All six family members died.
In a separate incident on Sunday evening, in the suburb of Sidoarjo, a man detonated an explosive as police closed in on his apartment, killing his wife and one of his children, and injuring another three.
The serial bombings have revived fears about radicalisation in the world’s most populous Muslim nation, and of the presence of sleeper cells linked to the Isis terrorist group.
The national police chief, Tito Karnavian, said the family who carried out the attacks on Sunday morning had been in Syria, where the Islamic State group until recently controlled a large swath of territory.
Isil immediately claimed responsibility. "Three martyrdom attacks killed 11 and wounded at least 41 among church guards and Christians," it said via the Telegram messaging app on Sunday afternoon, before the death toll rose.
The bombings also 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 police said four suspected members of the radical group Jamaah Anshar Daulah had also been killed in a shootout during raids linked to the prison riot.
They would not comment on whether the group was connected to Sunday's bombings, but analysts have suggested the recent incidents may have been coordinated.
Sunday’s death toll was the highest since nine people were killed in 2009 attacks on two luxury hotels in Jakarta, and come amid fears about the rise of sectarian intolerance in the country of 260 million, where 90% of the population is Muslim but there are sizeable Christian, Hindu and Buddhist minorities.
Churches have been targeted in the past. In 2000, bombs disguised as gifts delivered to places of worship killed 19 people on Christmas Eve. Tourists have also been attacked in the archipelago nation. In 2002, bombings hit tourist spots in Bali, killing 202, mainly foreigners, in the country’s worst-ever terror attack.
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