The man who carried out Sunday’s suicide bombing at a church in Indonesia was from an anti-West Islamist terrorist group and more such attacks could follow as his accomplices who have eight bombs remain at large, police said.

The suicide bomber of the Sepenuh Injil Bethel Church (Bethel Full Gospel Church) in Solo City of Central Java province was identified as Pino Damayanto, aka Achmad Yosepa Hayat, a member of the Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid terror group, National Police spokesman Anton Bachrul Alam said Tuesday.

Hayat blew himself up inside the church, wounding 28 people soon after the worship service was over Sunday morning. more >>

A day after a suicide bomb attack wounded 28 at a church in Indonesia, affiliated with Pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback megachurch, explosives were found in front of another church in a different district Monday, exposing the magnitude of the threat to minority Christians.

While a suicide bomber struck Sepenuh Injil Bethel Church (translated as “Bethel Full Gospel Church”) in Solo City in Central Java province Sunday morning, police found another bomb in front of Maranatha church in Ambon Island, the capital of Maluku province, Monday.

“This is in a series of bombs that we found there [in Ambon],” the Jakarta Globe newspaper quoted National Police spokesman Anton Bachrul Alam as saying. “All are homemade bombs, they are all similar. So the maker is the same.” more >>

A suicide bomber has attacked an Indonesia church affiliated with Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in Southern California, killing at least two people and injuring several others.

In a "Purpose Driven Network Alert" published on his Facebook page and Twitter account, Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, alerted followers to the attack in the early hours of Sunday morning.

He wrote: "Purpose Driven Network Alert: Our sister church in Solo City, Indonesia, Bethel Full Gospel Church, has just been bombed." more >>

A mayor in Indonesia is fighting to ban the construction of Christian churches on streets that bear Islamic names, and is prohibiting the use of an existing church in the city of Bogor.

In the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, religious intolerance continues to block the opening of the Taman Yasmin Indonesian Christian Church. The church was supposed to be unlocked in 2008 in Bogor, but the legality of the permit to build was protested by residents.

In December, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Taman Yasmin, and approved the church’s construction. Also, the church recently received a recommendation by the National Ombudsman Institute urging the building’s permit to be reinstated, Charisma News reported. more >>

JAKARTA, Indonesia - A mayor in West Java who disregarded a Supreme Court ruling to reinstate the building permit of a church in Bogor has now dismissed a recommendation by the National Ombudsman Institute to do so.

Bogor Mayor Diani Budiarto rejected the recommendation to reinstate the permit for the Indonesian Christian Church (Gereja Kristen Indonesia, or GKI) Yasmin Bogor Church last month, leaving the congregation to worship on a small strip of land as 15 to 20 Muslim demonstrators taunt them.

“The Ombudsman’s recommendation is only a suggestion,” the mayor told Tempo magazine. more >>

Indonesia has given 17 men prison sentences of up to five months for burning churches and attacking police officers, Thursday.

The offences were carried out in February when 1,500 Muslim militants attacked and set on fire two churches, as well as ransacking a third in Temanggung, Java.

The mob was furious that a Christian man had not been given the death penalty in a court appearance for insulting Islam. more >>