A husband and wife used their four children in a string of deadly suicide attacks on three churches in the Indonesian city of Surabaya that left 12 people dead, according to the country’s ranking police official.
Earlier reports indicated at least 10 people died in the Sunday morning attacks, but Head General Tito Karnavian said during a news conference there were 12 victims.
Forty-one people, including two police officers, were hospitalized with injuries, said police spokesman Frans Barung Mangera.
The six bombers also died, Karnavian said. Investigators believe the parents belong to Jamaah Ansharut Daulah, a terrorist group that lends its support to ISIS in Indonesia, the police general said.
[I am just constantly baffled by how smart some people are . . . NOT!!!]
The father, identified as Dita Oepriarto, drove a van to the Indonesian Christian Church and dropped off wife Puji Kuswat and their 9 and 12-year-old daughters. The wife and daughters went inside and detonated a bomb, Karnavian said.
The father then drove the van to the Pentecost Central Church, where, from inside the vehicle, he detonated another bomb in front of the church.
At the same time, the general said, Oepriarto’s two sons drove motorcycles to Santa Maria Catholic Church, where they, too, detonated bombs.
Forensic evidence indicated the bombs were attached to the attackers’ bodies, Karnavian said. At the family’s home, investigators found three plastic boxes containing pipe bombs, Surabaya police Grand Commissioner Rudi Setiawan said.<3>
CITED REFERENCES
3. “Family of suicide bombers attacks 3 churches in Indonesia, killing 12, police say”
Masrur Jamaluddin, Eliott C. McLaughlin, and Susannah Cullinane. CNN: May 14, 2018.
Link: https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/13/asia/ind ... index.html (accessed April 4, 2019).
