Bangkok Post, November 01, 2006 20:53
Indonesia tries to halt religious terrorism
Jakarta (dpa) - Indonesian police on Wednesday named 26 new suspects in
religiously-motivated attacks in restive Central Sulawesi province, the scene of
massive violence between Christians and Muslims in recent years.
"We are hunting down 26 more suspects for their involvement in a series of terror
attacks in Poso and Palu," national police spokesman Anton Bahrul Alam told
Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, referring to the troubled provincial district and its
capital.
He said police rushed to distribute photographs of the wanted men, adding, "We want
them to surrender quickly."
Earlier this week, police arrested 15 other people in connection with violence.
"They are all involved in 13 cases of terror attacks in Poso and Palu, including last
year's beheading of three Christian schoolgirls and the recent killing of a Christian
priest," Bahrul Alam told dpa.
Tensions in Central Sulawesi have been high since the September 22 execution of
three Christian men convicted of leading a massacre that killed at least 70 people in
an Islamic boarding school in Poso in 2000.
Poso, about 1,600 kilometres northeast of Jakarta, and nearby regions were wracked
by communal fighting between Muslims and Christians from 1998 until 2001 that killed
more than 1,000 people from both communities.
In early 2001, Muslim and Christian religious leaders signed a government-sponsored
peace accord aimed at ending the conflict, but sporadic violence continues to occur.
Although the vast majority of Indonesia's 220 million people are Muslim, about half of
Central Sulawesi's population is Christian.
© Copyright The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd. 2006
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