Suicide attack targets police after Surabaya family church bombings

SURABAYA, Indonesia (CNN) -- The Indonesian city of Surabaya has been rocked by a string of attacks in the past 24 hours, including suicide blasts at three churches on Sunday carried out by a single family with four children.
The latest attack targeted a police station in the the country's second largest city Monday morning, when four suicide bombers on two motorbikes drove into the main gateway of the police station before detonating explosives, police spokesman Frans Barung Mangera said.
Ten people, including four police officers, were wounded in the attack. Police said all four attackers were dead and their identities were under investigation.
Excluding the attackers, eight people were killed in the series of bombings Sunday, when a husband and wife used their four children in deadly suicide attacks on three Christian churches.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, has struggled in recent months with a rise in Islamist militancy, which has come as ISIS has been squeezed out of its heartland in Syria and Iraq.
"These attacks are the nightmare scenario that's been anticipated since Indonesians affiliated with ISIS have returned from the Middle East," said Greg Barton, Chair in Global Islamic Politics at Deakin University in Australia.
Police Head General Tito Karnavian, Indonesia's top-ranking police officer, said he suspects the family were members of terrorist group of Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), a main supporter of ISIS in Indonesia. Earlier reports had said the family had recently returned from Syria but Tito Karnarvian said that was not the case.
The family's two young daughters, aged 9 and 12, were present when their mother detonated one of the bombs, and the couple's two teenage sons carried out a separate attack on another church. All members of the family died in the attacks.

In a separate incident later that night that police also called a terrorist attack, a bomb exploded at the Wonocolo low-cost housing complex in the city.
The bomb exploded prematurely, instantly killing a woman and her 17-year-old daughter, Barung Mangera said, adding police later found the father of the family in the house holding a detonator, and shot him.
The family's 12-year-old son took his two younger sisters to the Bhayangkara Police hospital, he said.

ISIS claims church attacks
ISIS said it carried out the church attacks that



injured a further 41 people, although authorities have not confirmed the claim.
In that attack, a man identified as Dita Sopriyanto by authorities drove a van to the Indonesian Christian Church and dropped off his wife Puji Kuswat and their 9- and 12-year-old daughters, Tito Karnavian said.
The wife and daughters went inside and detonated a bomb, he added.
The father then drove the van to the city's Pentecost Central Church, where, from inside the vehicle, he detonated another bomb in front of the church.
At the same time, the general said, Sopriyanto's two sons drove motorcycles to Santa Maria Catholic Church, where they, too, detonated bombs. According to CCTV footage, the bomb at that church went off at 7:08 a.m. Sunday. (8:08 p.m. ET Saturday).
Opening salvo?
Indonesia has long struggled with domestic terrorist groups, particularly the al-Qaeda affiliated group Jemaah Islamiyah, which claimed responsibility for 11 attacks between 2000 and 2010, including the deadly 2002 Bali bombings that left more than 200 people dead and hundreds injured, many of them tourists.
In recent years, Indonesia has been confronting ISIS attempts to recruit members in the country.
Barton at Deakin University said the Surabaya attacks could be the "opening salvo of a new, more sophisticated campaign," and added that the timing -- just before Ramadan, which begins May 15 -- "bears the hallmarks of ISIS," which has used the holy month in the past to launch high profile attacks.
"This is the first Ramadan since ISIS-linked Indonesians have returned" from Syria, he said.
The United Nations Secretary-General condemned the three terrorist attacks on the Surabaya churches. Through his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, Secreatry General Antonio Guterres said that he was "appalled at reports that children were used to participate in the attacks," and offered his condolences to the families of the victims.
"(The Secretary General) reiterates the support of the United Nations to the Government and people of Indonesia in their efforts to fight and prevent terrorism and violent extremism, including through the promotion of pluralism, moderation and tolerance," the statement said.
More than 82% of Indonesia's roughly 261 million people follow Islam. Almost 10% of the population is Christian.
CNN's Eliott C. McLaughlin, and journalists Masrur Jamaluddin and Susannah Cullinane contributed to this report.