Indonesia: Islamic Extremist Suicide Bomber Family Attacks Three Churches, Kills at Least 12
Islamic extremists in Indonesia, including a family of suicide bombers that targeted three churches, launched multiple attacks yesterday and today that reportedly killed at least 12 people not including the assailants.
The father of the family that killed the Christians on Sunday (May 13), Dita Futrianto, was the suspected head of the local cell of an Islamic State-inspired network called Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), the BBC reported, citing police.
Futrianto was reported to have dropped off his wife, Puji Kuswati, and their two daughters, ages 9 and 12, at Diponegoro Indonesian Christian Church in Surabaya, East Java. With her two daughters present, Kuswati hugged a parishioner before detonating her bomb, according to the Associated Press, citing a security guard.
At Surabaya Centre Pentecostal Church, Futrianto then drove his car onto the church grounds and detonated explosives. Earlier in the morning his sons, ages 16 and 18, had ridden motorcycles into Santa Maria Catholic Church and detonated their explosives. Police reportedly said the second and third church attacks came five minutes apart.
East Java police told reporters today that 13 of the 25 dead were the assailants, according to the Jakarta Post. The newspaper reported that 12 people died in the church attacks.
Two other churches were targeted as well, but bombs failed to explode at St. Jacob's Church in West Surabaya and the Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral, according to the Post.
Another family reportedly attacked a police station this morning (May 14), wounding 10 people, including police officers. The four perpetrators on two motorbikes died after driving into the building gateway and detonating explosives, according to police, who said an 8-year-old girl on one of the motorcycles was thrown from the vehicle but survived.
On Sunday night (May 13), a bomb in the Wonocolo low-cost housing complex in Sidoarjo exploded prematurely, killing a woman and her 17-year-old child, police said. Officers reportedly found the father of the family in the house holding a detonator and shot him. The family’s 12-year-old son reportedly took two younger sisters to the Bhayangkara Police hospital.
Police said they killed four suspected members of JAD in Cianjur, West Java Province, and arrested two others, according to the BBC.The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for Sunday’s church attacks in Indonesia.
The bombings, the deadliest in Indonesia in more than a decade, also wounded more than 40 people, police told journalists.
IS first mounted attacks in Indonesia in 2016, claiming the lives of four civilians in explosions and shootings. It also claimed responsibility for an attack on a high-security prison near Jakarta that killed five security forces personnel earlier this month, among other attacks.
Al-Qaeda has carried out the worst attacks in Indonesia, killing more than 200 people on the island of Bali in 2002. Other attacks killed 22 people on the island of Sulawesi in May 2005, and 20 in Bali later that year.
On Feb. 11 in Central Java’s city of Yogyakarta, a Muslim extremist attacked a Catholic church. The 23-year-old identified as Suliyono of Bayuwangi in East Java wounded a priest and three others during Mass at St. Lidwina Catholic Church.
The Jakarta Post quoted National Police spokesman Setyo Wasisto as saying that the assault fit a pattern of recent attacks by terrorists in other countries, and that Suliyono had been radicalized after joining several religious organizations, which he declined to name, while a student in Sulawesi.
Indonesia ranked 38th on Christian support organization Open Doors’ World Watch List of the 50 countries where it is mot difficult to live as a Christian.
Indonesia Bombings ‘Did Not Come as a Surprise’
As details emerge of the shocking tactics used in the two bomb attacks in Indonesia over the last 48 hours, a regional analyst has said he was not surprised by the apparent Islamist motive.
“Just a few weeks before the attacks, the government published a study, according to which close to 25 per cent of university students agree with the idea of a caliphate. Another study showed that eight per cent are ready for violent jihad, if given the opportunity. So in a way did not come as a surprise,” Thomas Muller, analyst at Christian charity Open Doors International’s World Watch Research unit, said in a radio interview for a Catholic broadcaster yesterday , answering a question about how a country once known for its inter-religious tolerance could give way to extremism.
A 2016 report looking at terrorism in Indonesia found that recruitment to the Islamic State group from the country was “one of the lowest” in the region as a proportion of its 200 million population, which it put down to “a strong culture of moderate Islam, a non-repressive government and relative political stability”. The report, by a group of regional analysts, said the threat from IS-inspired militants “should not be under-estimated”, however, given Indonesia’s long history of Islamic terrorism and lack of legal measures to prosecute individuals under suspicion of terrorism.
Yesterday‘s (13 May) suicide attacks on three churches in Surabaya, the capital city of East Java province, by members of a single family were followed by this morning’s (14 May) suicide attack on a police headquarters by a family of five. Indonesian police have revealed that the family that attacked the three churches on Sunday included two girls, aged nine and 12, two teenage boys, and both of their parents, identified in the New York Times as Dita Oepriarto and his wife, Puji Kuswati.
An eight-year-old girl, wedged between her parents on a motorbike during this morning’s attack on the police headquarters, survived the blast.
Meanwhile police said that an explosion yesterday at a block of flats in Surabaya killed three members of a family who may have been planning an attack.
Latest figures from the BBC put the overall death toll from the three attacks at 18, with more than 40 injured. Yesterday’s attacks were the most deadly. The two teenaged sons rode motorcycles into Santa Maria Catholic Church and detonated explosives at 07:30 local time, just five minutes before their father drove a bomb-laden car at Surabaya Centre Pentecostal Church, and followed shortly after by their mother and two sisters carrying out a bomb attack on Diponegoro Indonesian Christian Church.
Response to the attacks
Indonesian President Joko Widodo described the attacks as “cowardly, undignified and inhumane” and said he will push through a long-awaited anti-terrorism bill if parliament does not pass it.
President Widodo was one of 70 prominent Muslim scholars meeting at the presidential palace in West Java to discuss peace in Afghanistan just three days ago, on 11 May. The group, from Pakistan, Indonesia and Afghanistan, issued a fatwa saying that “violent extremism and terrorism, including suicide attacks, are against Islamic principles” in an effort aimed at convincing the Taliban to end its violence, reported Associated Press.
Indonesia’s largest Muslim organisation, Nahdlatul Ulama, condemned the attacks. “Every act of hostility that manipulates religion is not supported by Islam,” it said in a statement.
In a statement from the Christian Conference of Asia, its General Secretary Dr. Mathews George Chunakara expressed his condolences to the victims’ families and stated that the attack carried out against worshiping communities during Sunday services is a “heinous crime, which is not justifiable by any religion”. He said the attacks “aim at destroying the country’s long-nurtured and cherished values of religious harmony”.
Pope Francis prayed that those affected would find no place in their hearts for “hatred and violence”, but instead “reconciliation and fraternity”, reported Catholic news site Crux.
The attacks are the worst in Indonesia since Al-Qaeda killed 22 people on the island of Sulawesi in May 2005, and 20 in Bali later that year.
The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the Surabaya attacks, which are believed to have been orchestrated by Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), an Indonesian militant group formed in 2015 and affiliated to IS. JAD is led by the jailed terrorist Aman Abdurrahman, who has been accused of spreading IS propaganda from behind bars. Abdurrahman is currently facing new charges of masterminding attacks including the November 2016 bombing of a church playground that left one child dead.
The Surabaya attacks show more sophistication than previous “amateurish” plots by JAD, Zachary Abuza of the National War College in Washington DC told the BBC. The use of children in the attacks was “absolutely unprecedented” in the region, he said, and speaks to the “ideological indoctrination” of the group.
World Watch Monitor reported in March that an attack on a church on the island of Sumatra was a “political warning” ahead of June’s regional elections. A local source said at the time that “in [Indonesian] politics, targeting Christians is a classic manoeuvre to garner votes and support from Muslims”.
The terrorist attacks came only days after Islamist militant prisoners ended a five-day siege at a high-security jail on the outskirts of the capital Jakarta, reported Reuters. During the stand-off the militants killed five members of Indonesia’s counter-terrorism force, Densus 88. The elite force was set up in 2003 following the 2002 Bali nightclub bombing that left 202 people dead. Densus 88 was described in 2016 as having “become better than pretty well any other counter-terrorism group in the world” at foiling attacks.
The 70th Anniversary of Israel: 'If You Will it, it is No Dream'
On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion gathered with 250 guests in the Tel Aviv Museum (known today as Independence Hall). Ben-Gurion was head of the World Zionist Organization, a movement dedicated to creating a homeland for the Jewish people in their historic Promised Land.
Behind him hung a portrait of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism. At 4:00 p.m., Ben-Gurion banged his gavel. He then read a proclamation declaring the existence of the modern State of Israel.
I have stood several times in Independence Hall. Each time, I am moved again by the courage of the men and women who risked their lives and families to birth their nation.
In a move timed to coincide with this dramatic anniversary, the United States is relocating its embassy to Jerusalem at 4:00 p.m. (8:00 a.m. in Dallas) today. Palestinian marches against the move have already begun.
Four biblical themes that explain modern-day Israel
In Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn, historian Daniel Gordis describes Israel as “a story of a homeless people that kept a dream alive for millennia, of a people’s redemption from the edge of the abyss, of a nation forging a future where none seemed possible.”
Gordis traces several biblical themes that converged in the creation of modern-day Israel.
One: The importance of the Promised Land.
Gordis notes, “There could be no Jewish nation, and no Jewish family, their ‘diary’ [the Bible] intimated, without their land at the center of the story.” He adds, “Genesis is fundamentally the story of Abraham’s complex family, but central to that story is the land on which they have been told to live.”
Two: The need for courage.
The Zionists understood from Scripture that “the road to true freedom would be long and difficult.” In the book of Joshua, the people had to cross a flooded river. Canaan was occupied by seven different nations. Wars were frequent, and the land was seldom without conflict.
Three: The danger of disunity.
As the Jews established themselves in Canaan, they faced constant threats from their enemies near and far. When they divided into Northern and Southern Kingdoms, they fell captive to the Assyrians and then the Babylonians.
Four: The call of God.
The Jewish Bible (what we call the Old Testament) is arranged so that its last book is not Malachi but 2 Chronicles. As a result, Gordis notes, “The Jews’ national story that had opened with God telling Abram to go to the ‘place that I will show you’ (the Land of Israel)–concludes with the Bible’s very last words, ‘Let him go up [to Jerusalem]'” (2 Chronicles 36:23).
“What is the secret of his immortality?”
Those who founded the modern State of Israel learned from their biblical ancestors the importance of trusting God’s promises, serving him with courage, living in unity, and fulfilling God’s call by faith. After more than twenty trips to Israel, I can testify that these values still animate these remarkable people.
New York Times columnist David Brooks: “Jews are a famously accomplished group. They make up 0.2 percent of the world population, but 54 percent of the world chess champions, 27 percent of the Nobel physics laureates and 31 percent of the medicine laureates.”
Fifty years before the birth of the modern State of Israel, Mark Twain wrote an extraordinary essay for Harper’s Magazine on the Jewish people. He concluded:
“The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished.
“The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”
“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem”
On this historic day, how does Scripture answer Mark Twain’s question?
I am convinced that God is still using the Jewish people. Whatever our position regarding Israel and prophecy, we should acknowledge that God made the children of Abraham into “a great nation.” And that through them “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:2, 3).
Now God is calling us to love the Jewish people as he does.
Paul said of his fellow Jews, “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved” (Romans 10:1). Standing before the Jewish supreme council, Peter said of Jesus, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
The Lord wants the Jewish people to make Jesus their Messiah, that they might know God as their Father and Lord.
Scripture teaches that our Lord loves the Arab people as well. He said of Ishmael, the ancestor of the Arabs, “I will make him into a great nation” (Genesis 17:20). In fact, God loves all nations and anticipates the day when people “from all tribes and peoples and languages” are gathered with him in heaven (Revelation 7:9).
On this historic day, would you take a moment to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6)? Would you pray for a day when Jews, Arabs, and all other peoples make the Prince of Peace their Lord?
When he called for a Jewish state fifty years before the rebirth of Israel, Theodor Herzl assured his people, “If you will it, it is no dream.” He was right.
The Chinese police in Nanchang made news in mid April when the press reported the arrest at a concert of a man wanted for fraud. The story was significant because automatic facial recognition systems, linked through now 176 million cameras across the country (rising to 600 million by 2020), had picked the man out of a crowd of 60,000 concertgoers and allowed the police to pinpoint his location in real time.