The Straits Times, April 27, 2004 10.35 am (Singapore time)
Fresh clashes in Maluku bring toll to 24
AMBON - Snipers shot and killed three paramilitary police and a mob hacked a man
to death as bloody clashes between Muslims and Christians continued for a third day
in Indonesia's eastern Maluku islands, police and witnesses said on Tuesday.
Machine gun-wielding armoured vehicles patrolled the streets in provincial capital
Ambon amid sporadic gunfire in the bloodiest outbreak of violence in the region since
a peace deal in 2002 ended two years of religious violence that killed 9,000 people.
The earlier fighting drew Muslim militants from all over Indonesia and South-east Asia.
Many of them later joined the Al-Qaeda-linked terror group Jemaah Islamiah, which
was blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings.
On Tuesday, police spokesman Brigadier-General Soenarko said at least 24 people
had been killed in the last three days.
An AP reporter saw the three bodies of policemen carried out of trucks into the city's
main Al-Fatah mosque. Dozens of Muslims, brandishing long swords and sticks,
crowded around yelling 'Jihad' or Holy War and 'God is Great'.
The policemen were caught in clashes while patrolling Talake district at dawn on
Tuesday, Brig-Gen Soenarko said. The snipers who shot the officers were not
identified.
Mobs hacked to death a man as he left a boat in the main port Yos Sudarso late on
Monday night, witnesses said. The body was left lying on the ground until volunteers
brought it to a mosque the following morning.
Analysts say that the violence in the group of island once known as the Mollucas will
not likely end in the run-up to presidential elections in July. -- AP
Copyright © 2004 Singapore Press Holding. All rights reserved.
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