A bombing and shooting heightened tensions in Indonesia’s religiously-divided Poso district during the Eid al-Fitr Islamic holiday but no one was hurt.
| "Happy Eid! Eat hot lead, infidels!" |
Hundreds of police reinforcements were last week sent to the district in Central Sulawesi — the scene of bloody Muslim-Christian battles earlier this decade — after recent attacks on Christians. A bomb exploded in a field in the Gebang Rejo residential area of Poso town on Tuesday but there were no casualties or damage, said an officer on duty at Poso district police. Another device found nearby was defused by a police bomb squad. A volley of shots was fired Tuesday in the town’s Lawanga district but no one was hurt. Several panicking villagers took shelter at a local television relay station until police arrived. Poso police chief Abdi Darma, quoted by the Jakarta Post, said the attacks were only meant to spread fear among people. "The situation has now returned to normal and I expect people not to be provoked by the two incidents," Darma said.
| The situation's returned to normal now that the fear's been spreak? |
Up to 1,000 people were killed in Muslim-Christian battles which broke out in the Poso district in 2000. The government brokered a peace deal in December 2001 but sporadic bloodshed continues. Earlier this month unidentified turbans gunmen killed an elderly church official and his driver in the district. An angry mob of 300 Muslims also beat to death a 23 year-old Christian man. They were protesting at the fatal shooting by police of a suspect in attacks last month which killed 10 Christians in the province. The al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah terror group was behind the attacks last month, according to a top security official. |