Indonesian police clear the area in front of an apartment building after an explosion in Sidoarjo, East Java, May 13, 2018. According to the national police spokesman - there has been an explosion in an apartment in Sidoarjo, hours after coordinated suicide bombings by members of the same family struck three churches in Indonesia's second-largest city, Surabaya. AP
TEMPO.CO, Surabaya - National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian said the motives behind the suicide bombing at the Surabaya Police HQ is similar to what drove a whole family to commit suicide bombings in three churches in Surabaya.
“Why did they do it in Surabaya? Because they controlled this region’s terrorist cell, especially after the police captured the JAD (Jamaah Anshorut Daulah) leader,” Tito told a press conference in the East Java Police HQ today.
Tito said the capture of JAD leader Aman Abdurrahman was also among the motives. JAD is a group notoriously known to have ties with ISIS.
The last motive, he added, was the pressures ISIS sustained in the Western world and the Middle East. ISIS members who have returned home to Indonesia have allegedly been ordered to conduct worldwide attacks.
However, Tito said the series of suicide bombings that took place in the past few days had nothing to do with any specific religion and was rather more connected to terrorist networks in regional states and the Middle East terrorist networks.
