Dozens of Indonesian mosques that cater to government workers are spreading radicalism and calling for violence against non-Muslims, the country’s intelligence agency said on Monday.
Its findings come six months after Indonesia’s second-biggest city Surabaya was rocked by a wave of suicide bombings at several churches during Sunday services, killing a dozen people.
Police investigate an explosion outside the Surabaya Centre Pentecostal Church. A series of blasts, including at least one suicide bombing, struck churches in Indonesia on May 13, killing at least 11 people and wounding dozens. Photo: AFP
They were the deadliest terror attacks in about a decade and once again put religious tolerance in the world’s biggest Muslim majority nation in the spotlight.
The Indonesian State Intelligence Agency said on Monday that it had investigated about 1,000 mosques across the Southeast Asian archipelago since July.
It found that imams at some 41 places of worship in one Jakarta neighbourhood alone were preaching extremism to worshippers – mostly civil servants who work at nearby government ministries.
The agency found about 17 clerics who expressed support or sympathy for Islamic State and encouraged parishioners to fight for the jihadist group in Syria and Marawi, the Philippine city overrun by foreign IS fighters last year.
