SURABAYA, Indonesia: The police headquarters in Indonesia’s second largest city was attacked Monday by suspected militants who detonated explosives from a motorcycle, wounding four officers and six civilians./
The attack comes a day after suicide bombings at three churches in the city by members of one family killed at least 13 people.
CCTV footage showed a car and two motorcycles approaching a security checkpoint at the police complex followed by an explosion from one of the motorbikes with at least two people aboard it.
Monday's attack follows suicide bombings at three churches in the city on Sunday that killed at least eight members of the public as well as six people from one family who carried out the bombings.
Surabaya police spokesman Frans Barung Mangera said civilians and police were victims of the attack but didn’t immediately announce a death or injury toll.
Police say the family that carried out Sunday’s suicide bombings had returned to Indonesia from Syria and included girls aged 9 and 12. All six members of the family died.
Separately on Sunday, three members of another family were killed when homemade bombs exploded at an apartment in Sidoarjo, a town bordering Surabaya, police say.
Indonesia’s president condemned Sunday’s attacks as “barbaric.”
Daesh claimed responsibility for the church attacks in a statement carried by its Aamaq news agency. It didn’t mention anything about families or children taking part and said there were only three attackers.
Indonesia’s deadliest terrorist attack occurred in 2002, when bombs exploded on the tourist island of Bali, killing 202 people in one night, mostly foreigners. But the fact that children were involved in Sunday’s attacks in Surabaya shocked and angered the country.
Jemaah Islamiyah, the network responsible for the Bali attacks, was obliterated by a sustained crackdown on militants by Indonesia’s counterterrorism police with US and Australian support. A new threat has emerged in recent years, inspired by Daesh attacks abroad.
Experts on militant networks have warned for several years that the estimated 1,100 Indonesians who traveled to Syria to join Daesh posed a threat if they returned home.
