The U.N. Security Council late Tuesday (March 30) condemned a bombing at an Indonesian church on Palm Sunday as a “cowardly terrorist attack” and called for the perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors to be held accountable.
Indonesian officials said Monday that a recently married couple with suspected militant links used pressure cooker bombs to blow themselves up outside the Roman Catholic cathedral. The attack wounded 20 people, including four church guards, and broke windows at the church and nearby buildings in Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province.
A Security Council press statement denounced the attack as a “reprehensible” act of terrorism and reiterated that “any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation.”
The council reaffirmed the need for all countries to combat “threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts.”
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Rev. Wilhelmus Tulak, a priest at the Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral in Makassar, said he had just finished celebrating Palm Sunday Mass when a loud bang shocked his congregation. He said the blast went off at about 10:30 a.m. as a first batch of churchgoers was walking out of the church and another group was coming in.
He said security guards at the church were suspicious of two men on a motorcycle who wanted to enter the building and when they went to confront them, one of the men detonated his explosives.
Police later said both attackers were killed instantly and evidence collected at the scene indicated one of the two was a woman. The wounded included four guards and several churchgoers, police said.
National Police Chief Gen. Listyo Sigit Prabowo told reporters one of the attackers was believed to have links to a church bombing in the Philippines.
The attack a week before Easter in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation came as the country was on high alert following December’s arrest of the leader of the Southeast Asian militant group, Jemaah Islamiyah, which has been designated a terror group by many nations.
Indonesia has been battling militants since bombings on the resort island of Bali in 2002 killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists. Attacks aimed at foreigners have been largely replaced in recent years by smaller, less deadly strikes targeting the government, police and anti-terrorism forces and people militants consider as infidels.
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