Police continue hunt armed Poso group after shoutout

Poso (ANTARA News) - Indonesian police vowed Tuesday to continue hunting suspected Muslim militants on the troubled eastern island of Sulawesi following a massive shootout the previous day that left 14 people dead. Authorities said they found three more bodies overnight from Monday's three-hour-firefight in Poso, Central Sulawesi province, where sectarian violence has killed hundreds.The shootout, the second this month, occurred when police counter-terrorism units raided four residential neighbourhoods early Monday looking for Muslim militants wanted in connection with bombings and murders in the province dating back to 2000. The militants are believed to be linked to Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaeda-affiliated regional terrorist network, although Indonesian police have not directly said they are part of that group. After the shooting ended, initial reports said one policeman and nine other people were dead, and two bystanders and six policemen were wounded. Brigadier-General Badrodin Haiti, the provincial police chief, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur DPA that the nine bodies were later identified as being suspected militants. "All of those dead men were armed," he told DPA, adding that police were still trying to identify the three bodies found overnight. Haiti said around 15 suspected militants, some carrying machine guns and rifles, escaped following the shootout. At least two of the nine people killed were on a police most-wanted list, and two others were 16-year-old boys, according to police sourcesOne of the teenage victim's mothers in Poso told dpa that her son was not a militant and had been "used as a human shield" by the suspects. Sisno Adiwinoto, spokesman for the Indonesian National Police, told a press conference in Jakarta Tuesday morning that 25 people were arrested following the clashes, according to the state-run Antara news agency. "The raid operations against the armed militants and wanted men will continue today," he said. "The effort to capture them will continue until all of them are arrested."Police confiscated a dozen bombs, firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition, bows and arrows, and 5 kilograms of potassium chlorate on Monday, Antara reported. It was the second deadly shootout between police and suspected militants in Poso this month. On January 11, police shot dead two people and critically wounded a third during a raid on a house where a group of alleged militants was staying. Later that day, attendees at a funeral for one of the victims mobbed a policeman walking nearby and killed him. In 2005, Poso police released a list of 29 Muslim men wanted for numerous crimes and religion-inspired violence in Poso, including the beheading of three Christian schoolgirls in 2005, according to Sidney Jones, Southeast Asian project director of the International Crisis Group in Jakarta.Poso, which lies about 1,800 kilometres north-east of Jakarta, was the centre of conflicts between Muslims and Christians in 2001 and 2002 that killed more than 1,000 people. In early 2001, rival party leaders signed a government-sponsored peace accord, but tensions remained and violence still frequently occurs. Muslim leaders have recently accused local police of siding with Christian groups. Although the vast majority of Indonesia's 220 million citizens are Muslim, around half of Central Sulawesi's population is Christian. (*)
Copyright © 2007 ANTARA
January 23, 2007