Indonesia church bombings: A timeline of militant attacks

A member of the police bomb squad unit examines the site of an explosion outside the Immaculate Santa Maria Catholic Church, in Surabaya, Indonesia on May 13, 2018.
PHOTO: REUTERS

JAKARTA (AFP) - The three blasts, including a suicide bombing, that targeted churches in Indonesia's second-largest city, Surabaya, on Sunday (May 13) are the latest in a string of deadly attacks in the world's biggest Muslim-majority country.

Here is a timeline of previous attacks:

- December 2000: Improvised bombs disguised as Christmas gifts and delivered to churches and clergymen kill 19 people and injure scores more across Indonesia.

- October 2002: Bombs at crowded nightspots on the resort island of Bali kill 202 people, mostly foreign tourists, in Indonesia's worst-ever terror attack.

- September 2004: A suicide car bomb kills 10 outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta.

- May 2005: Twin bomb blasts kill 22 at a market in the Central Sulawesi town of Tentena in an attack bearing the hallmarks of radical group Jemaah Islamiyah.

- October 2005: Three suicide bombers detonate explosives at tourist spots in Bali, killing 20.

- July 2009: Seven people are killed, six of them foreigners, and more than 40 injured when suicide bombers target the luxury Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott hotels in Jakarta.

- January 2016: A gun and suicide attack in the capital, Jakarta, leaves four attackers and four civilians dead, and was the first assault claimed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group in South-east Asia.

- May 2017: Suicide attacks kill three policemen and injure a dozen others at a busy bus station in Jakarta in an attack claimed by ISIS.

- February 2018: A radical Islamist who wanted to fight with the ISIS group in Syria injures four people with a sword in an attack during Sunday mass in Sleman town in Java.

- May 2018: Five police officers and a prisoner are killed in clashes at a high-security jail that saw Islamist inmates take an officer hostage. ISIS claimed responsibility for the incident.

Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.

A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Sunday Times on May 13, 2018, with the headline A timeline of militant attacks in Indonesia. Subscribe