In 2019, a bombing of a Catholic cathedral in the southern Philippines took the lives of 20 people.
This week, two suspects in that bombing were killed in a police raid in Indonesia.
Indonesian authorities said that two people were shot and killed when they resisted arrest during a January 6 raid in Makassar in South Sulawesi, according to media reports.
Witnu Urip Laksana, police chief in Makassar, said police carried out a raid against suspected members of the Islamic State-inspired Jamaah Ansharut Daulah, which has reportedly also carried out attacks in Indonesia, The Jakarta Post reported.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the January 2019 bombing of the cathedral in Jolo, Mindanao. Philippine authorities later said the attack was a suicide bombing by an Indonesian couple, with the help of a faction of the local Abu Sayyaf group, said Light of Catholics in Asia News.
The Philippine news site Rappler said that the region of Mindanao for decades has been “beset by separatist and Maoist conflict.”
“Authorities are concerned about extremism taking a hold in its impoverished, mainly Muslim areas, where operatives from Indonesia, Malaysia and beyond have linked up with local groups to plan attacks and recruit and train fighters,” Rappler said.
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