Churches targeted in bomb attacks across Indonesian city of Surabaya

Churches were targeted in three bomb attacks in Indo­nesia, including one believed detonated by a woman with a small girl.

Churches were targeted in three powerful bomb attacks in Indo­nesia — including one believed to have been detonated by a veiled woman with a small girl and a teenager — as 11 people were killed and 41 injured in one of the worst attacks on the country’s minority Christian community.

The strikes occurred in the country’s second-largest city, Surabaya, within 20 minutes of each other and just days before the start of the holy Islamic fasting month of Ramadan.

Police suspect at least five ­suicide bombers were involved in the attacks, including a man on a motorcycle who detonated his explosives in the car park of the Santa Maria church about 7.10am (10.10am AEST) after he was stopped by security guards for not taking a parking ticket.

A second blast at 7.30am is believed to have been detonated by a teenage girl and a woman holding a little girl, who were stopped by security as they tried to enter the Indonesian Christian Church.

Witnesses said all three were wearing long black hijabs and the woman and teenager were carrying backpacks.

“I saw a woman with a headscarf and veil walking towards the church with her two children. Naturally a security guard stopped her at the gate but the woman insisted on going in. That’s when the blast occurred,” said Antonius, a congregationist and civilian guard.

“The smaller child might be around eight or nine while the bigger one was probably a teenager,” he added.

Police and soldiers examine a site following attacks outside the Surabaya Centre Pentecostal Church in East Java.

Other witnesses described the little girl as a “toddler”.

Amateur footage taken outside the scene of a third attack, at the ­Arjuna Pentecostal Church, showed thick black smoke and flames billowing out of the building.

Witnesses described three consecutive blasts that shattered church windows and a metal roof canopy, and burned cars in the ­adjacent carpark. The bomb was suspected to be planted in a car parked outside the church.

President Joko Widodo rushed to the city to commiserate with victims of the blasts.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton expressed his condolences last night. “Our friends and partner agencies in Indonesia have done an excellent job in dealing with the threat of terrorism. Unfortunately, evil forces in Surabaya have killed and injured innocent people,” he said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with them. Australia stands with Indonesia in condemning this barbaric attack.”

Police said the attacks were probably linked to a deadly 36-hour standoff by militant Islamist prisoners at the Brimob high-­security jail just outside Jakarta last week in which five members of Indonesia’s elite counter-­terrorism force, Densus 88, and one inmate were killed.

Police shot dead four suspected militants and arrested two others in an early-morning raid yesterday in West Java in connection with the standoff.

Still from surveillance footage showing a motorcyclist (left) driving into the grounds of a church and detonating a bomb.

A spokesman for Indonesia’s intelligence agency said Islamic State-inspired group Jemaah Ansharut Daulah, an umbrella organisation of Indonesian militant groups on the US State Department terrorist list, was believed to be behind yesterday’s bombings.

“The main target is still security authorities, but we can say that there are alternative (targets) if the main targets are blocked,” Wawan Purwanto said.

Television images from Surabaya showed police combing through scenes of carnage — blood and debris scattered around the entrance of one of the churches — as they searched for clues and explosives. East Java police spokesman Frans Barung Magera told The Australian it was unclear how many militants were among the dead. Many of the injured, including two policemen, suffered burns and shrapnel injuries.

Mr Frans confirmed that the second attack appeared to have been carried out by a woman with children. He said police had been dispatched to guard churches across Surabaya and had urged all further Sunday sermons to be ­cancelled.

Yesterday’s attack is one of the most serious in a recent string of minor militant strikes believed to be the work of Islamic State sympathisers in Indonesia, beginning with a January 2016 gun and suicide attack in Jakarta, which left four attackers and four civilians dead. Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, has long prided itself on its reputation for tolerance and pluralism and hosts significant minority Hindu, Chris­tian and Buddhist communities among its 260 million-strong population.

But it is struggling to contain rising militancy and intolerance as hardline Islamists increasingly move into the mainstream.

Additional reporting: Agencies