Channel NewsAsia, 04 November 2005 1310 hrs
Bomb defused in Indonesia's restive Sulawesi town
JAKARTA : Police have defused a home-made bomb found in the religiously-divided
town of Poso in Indonesia's Central Sulawesi province.
Residents reported a suspicious package in front of a house in downtown Poso, near
the local office of the state telecommunications company, after dusk on Thursday,
First Inspector Obed from the Poso police said.
A police bomb squad found a home-made bomb inside and "it was defused", Obed
told AFP, adding that police had combed the site but found no other explosives. He
could not give further details.
The planting of the device was the latest incident to trouble the fragile peace in Poso,
where sectarian violence since 2000 has already left some 1,000 people dead.
A truce has been in place since a December 2001 government-brokered peace deal
but intermittent violence has continued.
Muslim extremists have been linked to bombings, shootings and other attacks
targeting Christ! ians in the area over the last two years.
The latest bomb was found as Muslims celebrated Eid al-Fitr, the festival marking the
end of Ramadan and the most important date on the Muslim calendar.
Police on Monday warned of possible attacks to coincide with the holiday, following a
low-intensity bomb exploding aboard a packed bus just south of Poso on October 27,
which injured several passengers but caused no serious damage.
Tension escalated in Poso further following the murders of three Christian schoolgirls
last Saturday, with about 1,000 security forces sent to the area amid fears of further
violence.
The state Antara news agency on Thursday quoted Central Sulawesi Police Chief
Oegroseno as saying that police now had descriptions of the assailants in the case, a
day after police had complained about a lack of leads.
"We have descriptions of the people involved in the case but we could not as yet
make them public for fear they will escape," he reportedly said.
Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim-populated nation but Christians and Muslims
live in roughly equal numbers in parts of the eastern island chain of Sulawesi and in
Maluku. - AFP/de
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