The Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral in Makassar, on the South Sulawesi island in Indonesia, was the site of a shocking suicide attack on Sunday morning when two militants blew themselves up in the middle of the packed church.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral in Makassar, on the South Sulawesi island in Indonesia, was the site of a shocking suicide attack on Sunday morning when two militants blew themselves up in the middle of the packed church.
The attack was apparently timed for maximum effect, occurring just when one Palm Sunday mass finished and another was about to begin, so one crowd was trying to leave as another was trying to get in.
According to the NY Post, a man and a woman pulled up on a motorcycle and tried to enter the packed church, but were confronted by security guards. As the guards were approaching, both individuals detonated the explosives they had been hiding on their persons.
Both attackers were instantly killed in the resulting blasts. Four security guards and many Catholic parishioners were wounded.
Almost while the attacks were occurring police were raiding another part of the island, and arrested four other suspected terrorists. These four are believed at this time to have ties to the two suicide bombers.
The attackers have been linked to a terrorist group active on the island which has ties to the worldwide Islamic State, and is suspected in another similar bombing in 2019 in the Philippines.
In past months, the Islamic State has ramped up its activities to levels not seen since years ago.
Indonesia has had problems with Islamic extremists conducting attacks such as these for almost two decades now, starting with the infamous bombing in Bali in the year 2002. That bombing killed 202 people, most of them foreign tourists.
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