ASSOCIATED PRESS, Sat May 4, 2002 9:55 AM ET
Two killed in Indonesia's Ambon as police arrest militia head
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Homemade mortars exploded in Indonesia's Maluku province
Saturday, killing two people amid renewed Muslim-Christian violence.
Also Saturday, police arrested the head of a Muslim militia long-accused of inciting
the conflict.
Jafar Umar Thalib, commander of the Laskar Jihad or Holy War Troop, was detained in
the Javanese city of Surabaya, shortly after arriving from Maluku, said national police
spokesman Maj. Gen Salah Saaf. He was immediately flown to Jakarta.
Saaf said Thalib was suspected of inciting the recent upsurge in violence in the
Maluku islands, specifically a raid that killed 13 Christians last Sunday on the
outskirts of Ambon, the provincial capital.
At least 9,000 people have been killed in the archipelago since fighting first started in
1999.
On Saturday, two people were killed in Ambon when mortar rounds exploded in a
Christian part of the city, witnesses and hospital officials said.
Security forces fired warning shots to disperse crowds of Christian and Muslims
fighting in the city. At least eight people were injured.
Sporadic explosions and gunfire were heard into Saturday night.
The violence was the latest in a series of incidents that have undermined a recent
peace deal aimed at stopping the conflict.
Both sides have accused the other of triggering the latest clashes, which came after
several months of relative peace.
Laskar Jihad, which enjoys high-level support in Indonesia, the world's most populous
Muslim nation, denies targeting Christians and says it only fights in self-defense.
It has rejected the peace deal signed in February and is refusing to hand in its
weapons.
Fighting intensified in 2000 when Laskar Jihad fighters arrived in the archipelago,
2,600 kilometers (1,600 miles) east of Jakarta, from their base on Indonesian's main
island of Java.
The group has been accused of having links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network,
something which it and Indonesian officials deny.
In Maluku — which has a population of about two million people — the balance
between Christians and Muslims is almost even.
Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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