The latest report from the Indonesian Police says that the total death toll from the bomb attacks in East Java stands at 21, including nine alleged to be perpetrators (or the perpetrators’ children), as well as dozens injured. Seeking to prevent any more attacks, police have been aggressively hunting other suspected terrorists, which has led to at least six more deaths.
East Java Police spokesperson Frans Barung Mangera said that law enforcement had tracked down seven more people suspected of having a connection to the terrorist attacks or the group behind them, two of whom were killed when police confronted them.
“Two of these suspects were been shot dead because they resisted the officers,” Frans said as quoted by Wartakota.
The police spokesperson said that all seven suspects were believed to be planning attacks in several more locations but told the media that police would not reveal the names of those targets to help maintain public calm. However, he said police were taking all steps necessary to secure those areas.
Frans did specify that three of the five remaining suspects were captured in Surabaya while the other two were secured in Sidoarjo.
Separately, the country’s elite anti-terror police, Densus 88, reported shooting and killing four men at Pasir Hayam Terminal in Cianjur, West Java, at around 1 am yesterday (before the church bombings). Officers confronted the men after following them there from Sukabumi. Another suspect was secured for questioning.
Police said they had reason to believe the men were planning to attack a police station. The weapons they found on the suspects, including firearms and poisoned knives, would seem to support that theory.
The results of their investigation at the crime scene led them to another suspect, identified as MG, who they said was brought to Jakarta this morning for questioning. Densus 88 have not yet revealed if any of the suspects were known to have ties to the terrorist perpetrators in Surabaya or Sidoarjo.
Suicide bombings took place at three different churches in Surabaya on Sunday morning, killing at least 14 and injuring 42. Investigators believe that a single family (including the father, mother and four children aged 9-18) were behind the attacks and that they were linked to the Surabaya chapter of Jemaah Ansharut Daulah, a terrorist network with links to Islamic State (IS). Officials also believe they were among 500 Indonesians recently returned from Syria who had gone to the Middle East to fight with IS and that they had spent some time with the terrorist group learning about terrorism tactics and bomb making.
Then, at around 9 pm, a homemade bomb prematurely exploded in the neighboring city of Sidoarjo in what the police have disturbingly described as another family affair akin to the Surabaya church bombings. Three were killed in this incident.
On Monday morning, five suspected suicide bombers — all believed to be from one family — attacked the Surabaya Police HQ. Four of the alleged bombers were killed, while the youngest among them, an 8-year-old, survived. Four police officers were wounded.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the suicide bombings via its propaganda agency Amaq, calling them “martyrdom attacks”. Police say that the bombings, as well as last week’s prison riot in Depok, were all done based upon instructions from the terror group’s central command.
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