Indonesia is still reeling from the bomb explosions that took place across four sites in Surabaya and one in Sidoarjo since yesterday. Adding to fears that they were all part of a larger coordinated attack, Indonesia’s National Police Chief Tito Karnavian said that terrorist acts, as well as last week’s prison riot in Depok, were all done on the orders of the Islamic State terror group, also known as ISIS.
“We also convey that the motive for these attacks came from central ISIS instructions. They urged and ordered other cells around the world to act,” Tito Karnavian said at East Java Police Headquarters in Surabaya today as quoted by Kompas.
Tito said that intel also connected the bombings in East Java to an alleged terrorist attack that took place in Paris on Saturday involving a a 20-year-old Chechen-born man named Khamzat Azimov, who was shot and killed by police after injuring four and stabbing one person to death with a knife.
Indonesia’s top cop told reporters that the terrorist acts in Surabaya and Sidoarjo were perpetrated by members of the Surabaya chapter of Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), an Indonesian terror network with ties to Islamic State. The father of the family who allegedly carried out Sunday’s church bombings is believed to have been the head of the chapter.
Tito also said that last week’s deadly prison riot at the Mobile Brigade Command Center (Mako Brimob) detention center in Depok, which left five police officers dead, was instigated by JAD members acting on ISIS commands.
“The Mako Brimob riots were not just about food (as police had first reported), but part of an international strategy,” Tito said.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for Sunday’s church bombings via its propaganda agency Amaq, calling them “martyrdom attacks”. They had previously claimed responsibility for the Mako Brimob riots.
Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors communications from Islamic State, noted that not only did the group claim credit for the attack, they did it in a way that suggested some degree of coordination. She also noted that it appeared ISIS was planning to use attacks to spread further propaganda.
1) #ISIS claims 3 suicide bombings on churches in #Surabaya #Indonesia, 4 days after ISIS prisoners clashed inside country’s Depok city prison—an alarming swell of activity in SE Asia as ISIS looks to regroup post-Iraq/Syria losses & defeat in #Philippineshttps://t.co/uZrMV3H9hn pic.twitter.com/m57CGoV2R0
— Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) May 13, 2018
2)Important to note that #ISIS claimed the attack on churches #Surabaya #Indonesia via a formal communique, signaling that the group had some degree of coordination—different than instances like yesterday’s Paris attack, which ISIS reported on via its Amaq https://t.co/3dNnm965ri pic.twitter.com/iXsBLash7c
— Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) May 13, 2018
3) #ISIS channels are orchestrating celebrations for the attack, with instructions to disseminate threats on social media platforms by commenting on prominent accounts (a common tactic used by the group),with the claim translated to various languages for spreading on social media pic.twitter.com/tWe8CeIUl3
— Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) May 13, 2018
Officials have stated that the family that was involved in the church bombings 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.
Police said that the bombing at Surabaya Police HQ this morning also involved five members of one family. Officials said that four of them died in the explosions but one, an eight-year-old girl, survived.
