One person has been killed and at least 10 people injured in explosion on Surabaya police station on Monday, one day later after 13 people’s in coordinated suicide bombings on three churches in the city.
Indonesia’s police chief said the attack was carried out by a family of five that included an eight-year-old child. The young girl survived and is now recovering, he said. The fate of other family members is unknown.
Police spokesman Frans Barung Mangera said six civilians and four police officers were wounded in the explosion at the police complex in Surabaya. The blast came just hours after police said one family, including girls aged 9 and 12, had carried out the church bombings.
He said, “Clearly it’s a suicide bombing. But “We can’t be open [about] all details yet because we are still identifying victims at the scene and the crime scene is being handled.”
Footage shows, The two motorbikes pull up alongside a car and four officers manning the checkpoint. At the moment of the explosion, two civilians appear to be walking into the checkpoint just meters from the motorbikes.
Police suspect the family that carried out Sunday’s suicide bombings had indeed returned to Indonesia from Syria, and IS claimed responsibility for those bombings. And the new attacks also linked to the Isis-affiliated Jamaah Anshorut Daulah (JAD) militant group, though the full extent of casualties was unclear.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo said the series of suicide attacks in Surabaya was the “act of cowards” and pledged to push through a new anti-terrorism bill to combat networks of Islamist militants in the country. “This is the act of cowards, undignified and barbaric,” Mr Widodo said on Metro TV.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull described the attacks as shocking and cowardly, and said he had written to Mr Widodo expressing Australia’s heartfelt sympathy.
“The brutality, the barbarity, the inhumanity, the blasphemy of these terrorists strains our ability to believe it but it’s there. These people are the worst of the worst” Mr Turnbull said.
>Juthy Saha
