Family beheaded in Indonesian terror attack

Four members of the same Christian family have been found murdered, some of them beheaded, in a terrorist attack in Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Days after radical Indonesian Islamic cleric Rizieq Shihab called for blasphemers against Islam to be executed in Jakarta, four Christians have been murdered – three were butchered while a third person was burned to death – on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

Indonesian police confirmed the family – a couple and their daughter and her husband – were members of the Salvation Army church. Their dismembered bodies were found on Friday in the village of Lenowu, Leban Tongoa district of Central Sulawesi.

A Salvation Army service post was also attacked in the village before the East Indonesian Mujahideen (MIT) terrorist group allegedly laid waste to six houses and a church associated with the universal evangelical Christian group.

Police at the scene where four people were killed in a remote Christian community of Lembantongoa village, in Palu on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Picture: AFP

The MIT terrorist faction, which operates out of Poso in Sulawesi, has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and has been designated as a terrorist organisation by the US Department of State since 2015.

The elite Indonesian anti-terrorism unit Densus 88 arrested seven suspects in two different regions of Central Sulawesi – Randangan and Buntulia – on Saturday.

“The suspected terrorists have been arrested and taken to Jakarta for further questioning at the National Police Headquarters,” Gorontalo Police Commissioner Mr Wayhu Tri Cahyono said.

The suspects have been under surveillance by the counter terrorism squad, Densus 88 for many months.

Last week two other suspected East Indonesian Mujahideen (MIT) – identified only as Bojes and Aziz, were shot dead by police attached to Sulawesi’s joint Indonesian military and police task force, code named Operation Tinombala, which is charged with hunting down and capturing members of the MIT in the troubled region.

The family of Christians were killed by Islamic terrorists. Picture: AFP

Reverend Gumar Gultom, president of the Protestant Christian Synod, has demanded that the government send a team of experts to open an investigation.

“This fresh violence reminds us of the sporadic violence of the past that took place in the same area of Sulawesi,” Rev Gultom said.

In 2005, three Christian high school girls were beheaded in the same region over sectarian clashes between Muslims and Christians. Later, three men were given the death sentence for sheltering Christians who had fled religious violence in Poso.

“I urge Indonesian security forces to eliminate the remaining terrorist fighters, who are still wanted in Sigi and Poso. The presence of the security forces is urgently needed to reassure locals and the country,” Rev Gultom said.