At Least 10 Wounded In Suicide Attack On Police HQ In Indonesia

By Scott Neuman / NPR

Published May 13, 2018 at 7:55 PM PDT

This story was published more than 6 years ago.

Response vehicles are parked outside local police headquarters following an attack in Surabaya Monday. The headquarters in Indonesia's second largest city was attacked by suspected militants who detonated explosives from a motorcycle, a day after suicide bombings at three churches in the city by members of one family killed a number of people.

Updated at 3:40 a.m. ET

Authorities in Indonesia say that a family of five riding two explosives-laden motorbikes carried out a suicide attack on police headquarters in Surabaya on Monday, wounding at least 10 people after a similar attack on three separate churches over the weekend killed more than a dozen people.

According to the BBC, video of the attack in Indonesia's second-largest city "shows two motorbikes approaching a checkpoint just before the blast."

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Authorities said six civilians and four police officers were hurt in the blast.

East Java police spokesman Frans Barung Mangera told The Jakarta Post that investigators believe a similar type of explosive was used in both Monday's attack and the church attacks over the weekend.

As NPR's James Doubek reported earlier, at least five people carried out an attack Sunday on three separate churches in Surabaya. Police say that six members of a single family, including girls aged 9 and 12, set off the series of suicide bombs.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for Monday's attack on the police headquarters on Monday, but the Islamic State said it had directed the attacks on the churches a day earlier.

Indonesia's president condemned Sunday's attacks as "barbaric."

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The AP reports that separately, three members of a family were killed in Sidoarjo, a town bordering Surabaya, when homemade bombs in their apartment exploded.