2 militants in 2019 Jolo church bombing killed in Indonesia

JAKARTA — A counterterrorism unit raiding a militant hideout in central Indonesia on Wednesday killed two men suspected by police of involvement in the 2019 bombing of a Catholic church in the province of Sulu in the Philippines that killed more than 20 people.

The Indonesian police, in a statement, said the raid in Makassar, South Sulawesi, by the Densus 88 unit led to a fatal shootout with two suspected militants who resisted arrest.

Suicide bombing

Makassar police chief Witnu Urip Laksana told Reuters that the suspects were involved in the bombings of a church in the Sulu capital of Jolo in a restive, predominantly Muslim region of the Catholic-majority Philippines.

Police carried out “firm and calculated” action against the suspects, Witnu said, adding that an investigation was ongoing.

The slain men were suspected members of the Islamic State (IS)-inspired Jamaah Ansharut Daulah, which has carried out a series of attacks in Indonesia.

Philippine authorities have concluded that the January 2019 church attack was a suicide bombing by an Indonesian couple, with the help of a faction of local group Abu Sayyaf, which has pledged allegiance to IS.

More than 100 people were also wounded in the incident, which was among the first and so far deadliest suicide bombings in the Philippines, where such attacks were almost unheard of until 2018.

Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.