gulftoday.ae | Jakarta to help Manila on church attack - Gulf Today

MANILA: Indonesian officials are ready to help the Philippines in its investigation especially in identifying an Indonesian couple, tagged as terrorists and suicide bombers being blamed for the bloody attack on a Catholic cathedral in Jolo, Sulu on Jan. 27, according to a senior Cabinet official.

"We have coordinated with the Indonesian government and they will help. At least we will know if we can identify the Indonesian bombers behind the attack," Secretary Eduardo Ano of the Department of Interior and Local Government told a government radio interview on Saturday.

Ano was referring to the twin explosions that ripped through the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Cathedral in Jolo where Mass was being said that killed 22 people and wounded more than 100 others.

Military and police investigators earlier held the Abu Sayyaf terror group that pledged allegiance to the Daesh extremists in the Middle East responsible for the bombings inside and outside the cathedral.

But Ano, a retired military chief, introduced a new twist to the investigation by claiming that based on information provided him by his sources, Indonesian suicide bombers, assisted by the Abu Sayyaf, were to blame for the attack.

In the radio interview on Saturday, Ano said he also talked with President Rodrigo "Rody" Duterte who disclosed his own sources informed him that the Indonesian couple were responsible for the bombings.

He explained the Indonesians wanted to show an example to other Filipinos on how to carry out suicide attacks because "it was not in the tradition of Filipinos to do so."

"They want to make an example of elevate it to a religious war so they choose churches to sow conflict between Christians and Muslims," Ano pointed out.

Last week, Duterte ordered the military to "pulverize" the Abu Sayyaf that resulted in an encounter on Friday between government forces and the terrorists that led to the killing of five soldiers and three militants in Jolo where they operate with impunity.

On Sunday, Major General Cirilito Sobejana, the chief of the military's Joint Task Force Central, reported that his men overrun and destroyed a lair of another Daesh-linked terror group, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), in Maguindanao province.

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via World - World Indonesia - Google News http://bit.ly/2SnBMD1