_WORLD WATCH______________________________
____________________ Indonesia ________________

New attacks in Moluccas
“Jihad warriors” still strike
Muslim “jihad warriors” have carried out new attacks on Christians in Indonesia.
In the Moluccas, on Sulawesi island, and in Java, anti-Christian violence exploded in late October and early November, leaving at least five dead.

Local Fides sources say that in Poso, in central Sulawesi, Muslim warriors attacked buses carrying Christians, using bombs and automatic weapons. One boy was killed. Also in Sulawesi, during the last week of October, Muslim students stopped buses in the southern city of Makassar and beat Christian youths severely. The Fides news agency reported that in Makassar anyone with “Christian” on his identity card is considered to be in danger.

In Java there were also episodes of intolerance. On October 26 the Baptist church in Tulung village was torched.

But the most serious situation is in the Moluccas where painstaking work for reconciliation is in progress, after fierce Muslim-Christian clashes over the past two years. After several months of calm, four people were killed and a dozen hostages taken when Muslim militants assaulted the predominantly Christian village of Waimulang, in the western Moluccas, on November 1. The attackers destroyed at least 350 homes, and more than 1,000 people fled to the forest for safety.

London-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide said that before the attack, Jafar Umar Thalib—the leader of an Islamic fundamentalist group in Indonesia, who is an Afghan veteran—was able to travel freely around the Moluccas region, giving inflammatory speeches and calling for the continuation of attacks on Christians.

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