Indonesia violence: Samurai sword-armed men target police station

The attack on a Sumatran police station comes after suicide bombings shocked the country in recent days

Four men who attacked a police station with samurai swords in Indonesia have been shot dead, authorities say.

The group began the assault by ramming a car into the police headquarters in the town of Pekanbaru in Riau province.

A police officer was killed and one of the assailants arrested. The Islamic State (IS) group has claimed the attack via its news outlet.

It comes after a series of suicide attacks carried out by families that have shocked the country.

Police blame a local IS-inspired group, Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), for the attacks in the city of Surabaya.

Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim-majority country.

Following the 2002 Bali bombings, it had been widely praised for its sustained anti-terrorism crackdown.

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It managed a combination of arrests and killings, alongside a de-radicalisation program that focused on changing minds and providing alternative incomes for released terrorists.

But, the country now faces a new threat, in part from from IS fighters who have come home after combat in Syria.

Four days of violence

• On Sunday, a husband and wife and their four children died when they attacked three churches in the city of Surabaya, killing 18 people and injuring more than 40

• Also on Sunday in nearby Sidoarjo, three people died in a bomb blast in a flat located near a police station

• In West Java police said they killed four suspected members of JAD and arrested two others

• Then on Monday in Surabaya, a family of five targeted a police station - four of them were killed but an eight-year-old girl survived.