The Age, January 3, 2006
Indonesia tense after 6 die in blast
By Tom McCawley, Jakarta
A BOMB attack on a Christian marketplace in a strife-torn Indonesian province killed
six and wounded 45 on New Year's Eve, highlighting the security challenges facing
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
The bomb, packed with nails and shrapnel, blasted through a pork market about 7am
in the town of Palu, capital of volatile Central Sulawesi province, where an estimated
2000 people have died in clashes between Christians and Muslims since 1998.
Rais Adam, a police spokesman for the province, said that a man was being
questioned.
"A man has been detained. We are interrogating him," he said from Palu, 1650
kilometres north-east of Jakarta.
The man was detained on Saturday near the site of the blast but had not been named
as a suspect, he said.
The attack came despite heightened police security over the holiday period after
intelligence agencies warned of possible terrorist attacks. About 19,000 police and
thousands of Muslim guards were deployed across Indonesia for the 10-day Operation
Candle.
"Suddenly there was a flash and a loud noise — we were all thrown to the ground,"
said one injured pork seller from hospital.
Syamsir Siregar, chief of the national intelligence agency, warned last week that the
security threat extended to Dr Yudhoyono and foreign officials, including Australian
diplomats.
"They target foreigners," he said, warning that US, Australian and British citizens
were at the highest risk because of their governments' involvement in the war in Iraq.
Several Western countries have urged citizens to avoid travelling to Indonesia due to
fears that foreigners could be targeted by Islamist extremists.
The Palu blast comes after a year that has seen several tests of Indonesia's religious
tolerance.
It has 194 million Muslims (88 per cent of its people), the world's largest Islamic
population. Roughly 8 per cent of the population are Christians.
Even since a December 2001 peace accord, nearby Poso has been a flashpoint of
bloody violence between Muslim and Christian groups.
Indonesia has seen a campaign of bombings in recent years, mostly blamed on
Jemaah Islamiah, a group with links to the international terrorist organisation
al-Qaeda. The most deadly was the October 2002 Bali bombing in which 202 people
died, 89 of them Australians.
Mr Siregar said Islamist militants wanted to kidnap businessmen, politicians and
foreigners to finance terrorist activities and replace waning funds. With
REUTERS
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