Two Sisters, 9 and 12, Headed out with Their Parents. What the Family Did Next Left Many Dead and 3 Churches Destroyed

An entire family of suicide bombers, including pre-teen girls, attacked three churches in Indonesia on Sunday, killing at least 10 people and wounding dozens more, national police said.

The clan of terrorists is believed to have ties to Jamaah Anshar Daulah (JAD), an extremist group that is affiliated with the Islamic State network in Indonesia. The attackers came from a single family whose head was the leader of a terrorist cell in Surabaya, the port city where the bombings occurred, according to National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian. . .

The attack struck three separate churches in Surabaya, the capital of Indonesia’s East Java province and the island nation’s second largest city. ISIS claimed responsibility for the bombings through its propaganda agency, Amaq, describing them as a “martydom” operation against Christian “crusaders” and security personnel.

According to Karnavian, the father of family was the bomber at the Surabaya Pentecostal Church, while two male teenage relatives blew themselves up at Saint Mary Immaculate Catholic Church. In the third bombing, the family’s mother and two daughters, ages 9 and 12, detonated one or more suicide vests at the Diponegoro Indonesian Christian Church.

The attack comes amid a rise in Islamic extremist violence in Indonesia, where supporters of ISIS have been seeking to carry out large-scale attacks against government security forces and the country’s Christian minority. Indonesian authorities believe it was the first time children have been involved in carrying out a terrorist attack in Indonesia, reports The Wall Street Journal. (Read more from “Two Sisters, 9 and 12, Headed out with Their Parents. What the Family Did Next Left Many Dead and 3 Churches Destroyed” HERE)

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