On November 27, members of the Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen, who pledge allegiance to ISIS, swarmed into a village in central Sulawesi for the sole purpose of causing violence. Gina Goh of International Christian Concern has talked with local officials about the Mujahideen.
"They allegedly attacked the Salvation Army service post in the area along with several houses," she shares. "They actually set them on fire, and they killed four Christians in the area."
The group fled and Indonesian forces are trying to locate them – a difficult task because the surrounding forests provide a ready-made escape route. The next day, The Salvation Army condemned the attack and called for the government to arrest the attackers, take appropriate action, and investigate to eradicate the criminal networks.
Goh tells One News Now that very soon after the attack began, every home in the village was vacant.
"After seeing the horror that was before their eyes where someone was hacked to death and someone was decapitated, about 750 in … and around the village ran to somewhere near – and they don't plan to return because of the danger that's still present over there," says Goh.
The village residents are farmers and have asked the government to help by providing land they can farm. But there is local resistance, and aid by the national government is limited. Although the government claims the attack was not motivated by religion, the terrorists are in fact Muslim and all the victims were Christian.
According to Goh, minority Christians in Indonesia have long suffered from discrimination and persecution. "The government," she adds, "should not cover the truth in the name of maintaining religious harmony."
President Joe Biden promised voters he would tackle the coronavirus pandemic better than Donald Trump, whom Democrats accused of being responsible for 400,000 deaths to date, but in the course of one day the new president snapped at a reporter over vaccine distribution and his new press secretary dodged a question about his mask-skipping hypocrisy.
News stories each weekday from reporters you can trust without the liberal bias found in much of "mainstream" media.
News stories each weekday from reporters you can trust without the liberal bias found in much of "mainstream" media.
The group International Christian Concern says Muslim terrorists need to be held responsible for the gruesome killing of four Christians in an attack last week that caused residents of an entire Indonesian village to vacate their homes.
The founder of a non-profit Christian human rights organization says the citizen journalist and lawyer whom China has imprisoned for telling the truth deserves international intervention and prayer.