Members of Densus 88, Indonesia’s counter-terrorist forces, arrested seven people who made terrorist threats to kill Pope Francis during his apostolic journey in the country. They made social media posts about bombing and killing Pope Francis and setting churches ablaze. All seven individuals live in different areas and have no connection to each other. Aswin Siregar, spokesman of the counter-terrorist forces, told reporters that

“Densus 88 has taken legal action against seven individuals… who made threats in the form of propaganda or terror threats via social media in response to the pope’s arrival. There was also a threat to set fire to the locations the pope paid courtesy visits.”

Most of those arrested were from different regions around Jakarta, and two were from Sumatra. Among them, at least one person has connections with the Islamic State. They all wrote posts about how they would carry out different attacks against Pope Francis or against churches.

Earlier this year, Indonesian special forces arrested a 19-year-old man and his parents, who allegedly planned to carry out bomb attacks against two churches in the East Java region. The head of the Indonesian counter-terrorist agency said this year that they had to focus on the protection of teenagers and women against Islamist radicalization since they became the most targeted group by terrorist agitators. They also reported that there was a significant increase among high school students who shifted from “passive intolerant” towards “active intolerant” views.

Source: Christian Daily