ASSOCIATED PRESS, Sunday December 2, 2001 8:21 AM ET
Indonesia Religious Violence Continues
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Dozens of houses were torched and four soldiers were
shot on Sunday in fresh fighting between Muslims and Christians on Indonesia's
Sulawesi Island, witnesses and hospital officials said.
The clashes cap a week of sectarian violence on the island that has killed at least
seven people and caused thousands to flee their homes.
Witnesses in the coastal town of Poso in central Sulawesi province reported hearing
gunfire and explosions until dawn Sunday. A doctor at Poso's hospital said four
soldiers were being treated for bullet wounds.
Fighting between Muslim and Christian villagers in Sulawesi, about 1,000 miles
northeast of Jakarta, has killed at least 1,000 people in the last two years.
The recent violence has been blamed on the arrival of hundreds of fighters belonging to
the Laskar Jihad, a paramilitary Muslim group accused of stoking a sectarian conflict
in neighboring Maluku province. About 9,000 have died in Maluku since 1999.
The Laskar Jihad group is based on Indonesia's main island of Java.
Police said Sunday they had arrested 30 of its members and confiscated weapons,
including a pistol, in the eastern Javanese town of Ngawi.
Police spokesman Maj. Peni Handayani said the group was believed to be preparing
to attack local political activists, but he gave no further details.
In Indonesia's westernmost province of Aceh, security forces shot and killed two
suspected rebels when they stormed a guerrilla base in the south of the region,
military spokesman Lt. Col. Firdaus Komarno said. Three other rebels were killed
Saturday in the same area.
Guerillas in the predominantly Muslim province have been fighting since 1975 for the
independence of their gas- and oil-rich homeland. More than 6,000 people have died in
the conflict.
Copyright © 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
|
