The family - a mother and father, two daughters aged nine and 12, and two sons aged 16 and 18 - were linked to local extremist network Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) which supports IS, said national police chief Tito Karnavian.

Local media reports say they may have returned from Syria, where hundreds of Indonesians have flocked in recent years to fight alongside IS.

The mother and her two daughters were wearing niqab face veils and had bombs strapped to their waists as they entered the grounds of the Kristen Indonesia Diponegoro Church and blew themselves up, said national police chief Tito Karnavian.

The father, JAD cell leader Dita Priyanto, drove a bomb-laden car into the Surabaya Centre Pentecostal Church.

His sons rode motorcycles into Santa Maria church where they detonated explosives they were carrying.

A police bomb squad also safely detonated an unexploded bomb that was discovered at the Surabaya Centre Pentecostal Church.

Police said four suspected JAD members were also killed on Sunday in a shootout during raids linked to a deadly prison riot this week.

Five members of Indonesia's elite anti-terrorism squad, and a prisoner, were killed in clashes that saw Islamist inmates take a guard hostage at a high-security jail on the outskirts of Jakarta. IS claimed responsibility.

Karnavian said Sunday's attacks may have been revenge for the arrest of some of JAD's leaders and for the prison crisis which eventually saw the surrender of the radical inmates.

"The incident angered them ... and there were instructions from IS in Syria, so they waited for a moment to take revenge," he said.

The Pope offered support over "the severe attack against places of worship," while President Joko Widodo called for Indonesians to "unite against terrorism."

Source

• radionz.co.nz
• straitstimes.com
• tvnz.co.nz
• theguardian.com
• channelnewsasia.com
• Image: thegaurdian.com

"We call on each parish and mission station to stay alert ahead of the observance of Holy Week and Easter," said Father Felix Astono Atmojo, vicar-general of Palembang Archdiocese in South Sumatra.

He also called on Catholics to continue building good relations with people from other religious backgrounds.

In Semarang Archdiocese, Vicar General Father Franciscus Xaverius Sukendar Wignyosumarta said the Religious Affairs Ministry's Directorate General for Catholic Community Guidance issued a circular following the church attack, calling on Catholics to stay alert.

"Security in churches must be tightened, and cooperation with police and security personnel must be improved," he said.

Archbishop Anicetus Bongsu Sinaga of Medan in North Sumatra said the church attacks have made Catholics more vigilant.

"But be inclusive, don't create enemies," he said.

The archbishop said the Immaculate Conception of Mary Cathedral Church formed a 12-member security team.

This followed an earlier attack on a priest during Sunday Mass at a church in Medan in August 2016.

According to Maria Theresia Erlien, a parishioner from St. Joseph Church in Matraman, East Jakarta, the call to be on alert should get serious attention.

Four people were killed in a bomb blast at the church on Christmas Eve in 2000.

"Being vigilant is important despite security personnel usually being deployed [for Holy Week]," she said.

Indonesia is the largest Muslim-majority nation in population. Alongside the 87 percent of its population who are Muslim, 10 percent of the population is Christian and 2 percent are Hindu. Discrimination and attacks on religious minorities occur not infrequently.

Source

• ucanews.com.
• catholicnewsagency.com
• Image: asianews.it

Suliyono, 22, a suspected Muslim extremist, armed with a sword, entered St. Lidwina Church in Yogyakarta as the congregation was singing a hymn during Mass led by Jesuit Father Karl-Edmund Prier.

"I forgive Sulyono with sincerity. Every day I pray the Our Father prayer, which states that as we forgive those who trespass against us," wrote 81-year-old Father Prier in a letter posted on the bishops' commission on social communication website.

Prier said he could have run away during the assault, "However, my conscience said: 'Do not go. The good shepherd should not run when wolves come.' I remained standing on the altar to divert the attacker's attention to me," he said.

Witnesses said the attacker charged in through the main entrance of the church injuring a parishoner before heading towards the altar.

As well as Prier, three other members of the congregation and a police officer responding to the incident, were injured in the attack.

Suliyono also attacked and damaged statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary.

In the video that went viral on social media, the attacker was seen swinging a sword in front of the altar. Some people were seen throwing rocks or chairs at him.

Police spokesman Yulianto said that Suliyono attempted to resist arrest and was shot by police in the thigh.

He also said Muslims had been very kind and helped clean up the church after the attack.

Archbishop Robertus Rubyatmoko of Semarang appealed for no acts of revenge over the attack.

"Let us just pray for the recovery of the victims and the change for the perpetrator's life," he said.

Anti-terrorism police are still investigating.

Source

• ucanews.com
• ucanews.com
• straitstimes.com
• Image: sesawi.net

"The terrorists have cells everywhere and they are active. We are continuing to pursue them," Sutarman, told reporters in Jakarta.

Since 2000, when improvised bombs disguised as Christmas gifts delivered to churches and clergymen killed 19 people and injured scores more across Indonesia, police have gone on high alert at the festive season.

But officials rarely give such specific warnings like the one issued last week.

Indonesia's small Christian minority has come under increasing pressure in recent years from Islamic extremists, who have forced the closure of churches and protested outside places of worship.

However the minority has not been targeted by a terror attack — a bombing or a shooting — since 2011 when a suicide bomber attacked a church in Solo, Central Java province.

Source

• SBS
• Image: News.com.au

The problem of Christian discrimination and persecution by Muslims is in fact two problems. Like unpunished crimes' victims who suffer twice, for the crime and for the injustice of the criminal's going scot-free, while the atrocities committed against Christians are unbearable enough on their own, the total indifference of the rest of the world adds to the pain.

Floods, earthquakes, natural calamities and man-induced ones like the recent collapse of a factory in Bangladesh attract lots of media coverage and offers of foreign aid, but this does not happen with what Raymond Ibrahim has rightly called "arguably the world's greatest humanitarian crisis" and Andrew McCarthy "the great unspoken civil rights issue.. [and] scandal of our day".

How much Western governments care about the plight of the Christians living in Muslim-majority countries can be seen by how indifferent they were to the systematic discrimination of which Pakistani Christians, during that country's 2010 devastating floods, were victims in the distribution of aid - essential to survival - ironically donated by those very same historically Christian Western countries.

The Vatican, to its credit, was one of the few to highlight that injustice. I have never heard of a Western government - or any other, for that matter - giving aid to Pakistan on that occasion only on condition that a fair and equal distribution was guaranteed.

In Islam "charity" has a different meaning from the Christian one, being a duty extended only to other Muslims. Continue reading

Sources

• Enza Ferreri's Blog
• Image: The Persecuted Church

Enza Ferreri is an Italian-born, London-based Philosophy graduate, author and journalist.