Deutsche Presse Agentur, Saturday September 9, 2006
Latest blast kills 1 in violence-torn Indonesian region
Jakarta - A bomb went off late Saturday in the violence- wracked eastern Indonesian
town of Poso, killing a woman - the second deadly blast in less than a week,! officials
said Sunday. Police said the 20-year-old woman died at a hospital from her wounds,
after she spotted a flashlight-shaped object outside her house in Poso of Central
Sulawesi province.
The state-run Antara news agency quoted witnesses as saying that unidentified men
riding on a motorcycle hurled an object into the yard.
Local police said that investigations are underway into the blast, which occurred at
8:25 pm Saturday.
On Wednesday, a Christian man was killed by a bomb at Poso's coastal area.
Poso, about 1,650 kilometres northeast of Jakarta, and nearby regions have been
wracked by communal clashes between Muslims and Christians, leaving more than
1,000 dead in 2000 and 2001.
Sectarian violence eased in 2002 after Muslim and Christian leaders signed a peace
accord in late 2001. But sporadic bombings and killings, mostly targeting the
Christian community, have still occurred since then.
Tensions are rising on Sulawesi amid plans by authorities to execute three Christian
militants for their role in several bloody rounds of religious violence between 1999 and
2002.
Christians groups are protesting the planned executions, while Muslim activists are
demanding that the three men die.
Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation, but Central Sulawesi has
roughly equal numbers of Muslims and Christians.
© 2006 DPA - Deutsche Presse-Agenteur
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