That most learned of imams, Pope Francis, is no doubt on his way to Deli Serdang right now, in order to explain to the surviving members of this Qur’an study group that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.”
“Two alleged assemblers of bomb in Medan blast shot dead in Deli Serdang,” by Apriadi Gunawan and Ruslan Sangadji, Jakarta Post, November 17, 2019:
Two men who were shot dead on Saturday in Deli Serdang regency, North Sumatra, were allegedly the assemblers of a bomb that recently exploded at the Medan Police headquarters.
North Sumatra Police chief Insp. Gen. Agus Andrianto said the two were shot in a gun fight with the police’s Densus 88 counterterrorism squad when a team ambushed four suspects, including the two who were shot, while they were riding motorcycles on a street in Hamparan Perak district in the regency.
One suspect was detained while the other escaped to nearby plantations.
“The bomb that they had assembled was used by [a suicide bomber] to attack the Medan Police headquarters,” said Agus.
A man who claimed he was an on-demand motorcycle taxi driver entered the police headquarters on Wednesday and blew himself up, killing himself and injuring six others.
The police have thus far named 18 suspects, including the wife of the suicide bomber.
Also on Saturday, the police detained another two suspects in Medan and three suspects in Aceh….
Djuhadi, 75, a resident in Sicanang, said the hut that the police had identified as the center of the group’s operation was actually someone’s home that had been left empty for four to five years.
“The members of the group has turned the place into a Quran study premise and also a place to practice archery,” he told The Jakarta Post….