Bombing at Indonesian Police Station Kills Officer, Hurts 7

On Indonesia's largest island, Java, a man blew himself up at a police station on Wednesday, killing an officer and injuring seven others, according to officials. This appears to be the most recent in a series of suicide assaults attributed to Muslim militants.

As officers gathered for a morning assembly, the assailant rode a motorcycle into the Astana Anyar police station and exploded explosives, according to Bandung city police chief Aswin Sipayung.

According to Ibrahim Tompo, a spokesman for the West Java Police, an officer died, six people were hurt, and all of them were taken to a hospital along with a civilian who had also been injured.

Body parts could be seen close to the police station's shattered lobby in a video that went viral on social media. According to television accounts, a loud blast was followed by people running in terror with white smoke rising from the structure.

Police were looking into the attacker's potential ties to extreme organisations.

The suspect brought two bombs, according to Suntana, the West Java Police Chief, but one of them was allegedly defused before it could go off.

Suntana, who uses by one name, claimed that police discovered a piece of paper taped to the assailant's motorcycle that read, "Let's battle the satanic law enforcement. Criminal code is the law of unbelievers."

A new criminal code that forbids having sex outside of marriage and insulting the president and government institutions was enacted by Indonesia's parliament on Tuesday.

Dutch colonial rule left behind the existing penal law. A new code was expected to be adopted in 2019, but President Widodo urged lawmakers to postpone the vote in the face of growing public outcry that sparked protests across the country because critics claimed it contained discriminatory language against minorities and that the legislative process lacked transparency.

Since bombings on Bali's tourist island in 2002, which killed 202 people, predominantly foreign visitors, Indonesia has fought extremists. In recent years, smaller, less lethal attacks against the government, police, anti-terrorism forces, and individuals who militants view as infidels have largely replaced attacks directed at foreigners.

In 2019, a suicide bomber targeted a busy police station in Medan, Indonesia's third-largest city, and detonated himself, inflicting at least six casualties.

Twelve people were killed in a series of suicide bombings that two families carried out on churches in Surabaya in May 2018, including two young girls whose parents had included them in one of the attacks. The father, according to the police, was the head of a regional branch of the terrorist organisation Jemaah Anshorut Daulah from Indonesia.