Makassar: During a Sunday prayer on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia, a suicide bomber blew himself up with a Suicide Bombers outside an Indonesian Catholic Church. At least nine people were injured in this attack. A large number of people were present in the church during the attack. police gave this information. In a related video, scattered parts of the human body were found near a lit motorcycle at the entrance of the ‘Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral’ in Makassar town in South Sulawesi province.
The attack comes at a time when Indonesia has been warned of extreme caution since the arrest of Jemaah Islamiyah leader Aris Sumarsono in December. Catholic clergyman Wilhelmus Tulk told reporters that the loud noise of the explosion was heard during the prayer. He was leading a prayer meeting on the occasion of the beginning of the Holy Week before Easter when the bomb exploded at 10:30 AM. He said that when the explosion occurred, the first group of churchgoers were going out while the other group was coming inside. Tulak said that the church security suspects that two people on the motorcycle wanted to enter the church.
One of them blew himself up. The injured include several security personnel and visitors to the church. National police spokesman Argo Yuvono said at a press conference that police were trying to identify both attackers who used powerful explosives. He said the police were investigating whether he was related to the local group of Ban Jemaah Islamiyah. Indonesia’s Anti-Terrorism Squad detained around 64 suspects in several provinces.
These arrests were made after receiving intelligence information about the possibility of attacks on police and religious places. Indonesia, the world’s most Muslim-populated country, has been fighting extremists since the 2002 bombings on the island of Bali killed 202 people. Most of the people killed in this attack were foreign tourists. Jemah Islamiyah was banned by the court in 2008 and the group was weakened in the subsequent action. After the attacks of the Islamic State in other countries, a new threat has arisen in recent years.
