Laskarjihad.or.id (Indonesia)

December 19, 2001

Nine people were killed in Indonesia's Malukka islands when gunmen wielding automatic weapons opened fire on the boat in which they were riding on Wednesday morning.

Police suspect Muslim militants
The attack took place off the Indonesian city of Ambon, a city torn by sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians for the past three years. Local police officials said the gunmen, riding in a speedboat, pulled up alongside a ferry carrying Christian merchants to Ambon and opened fire with automatic rifles.

All eleven passengers on the ferry were hit. Nine people--three women and six men--died on the spot. A man and a woman were wounded.

The victims were fish and vegetable traders who regularly took the early morning ferry to the market in Ambon, the provincial capital. Witnesses said the gunmen came from the direction of the Muslim area of the city; a local journalist quoted by AFP said that speedboat service between the Muslim and Christian areas was suspended immediately after the attack.

Security sources said that Muslim militants belonging to paramilitary group Laskar Jihad were the main suspects in the attack.

Security tightened ahead of Christian holidays
Most of the internecine violence has centered in the Malukka islands, where religious and ethnic tensions simmer just below the surface, ready to boil over at any time. However, last Christmas Eve, the violence reached  Jakarta and other Indonesian cities, where a series bombing blasts in churches killed 19 people.

The Chinese community has faced a history of brutality at the hands of extreme elements of the country's Muslim majority, from organized pogroms in the 1960's to attacks on Chinese merchants in 1997 and 1998, at the height of the nation's economic crisis.

One political analyst noted that the Chinese minority is often seen as a convenient scapegoat for the country's ills. "They play much the same role in contemporary Southeast Asian society as the Jews did in eastern Europe," he said. "As members of a well-educated, mercantile class, they arouse the envy of their neighbors; as outsiders, who tend to stick to their own kind; they are viewed as legitimate targets."

Islamist groups have been active in Indonesia as well. Violence between Muslims and Christians in the eastern archipelago has claimed 4,000 lives and driven more than half a million people from their homes in the past 18 months.

Earlier this year a Muslim militant group called the Laskar Jihad sent more that 2,000 fighters to the Moluccan Islands to wage a holy war against the region's Christians.

Islamist have also attacked more moderate Indonesian Muslims. In May a vigilante group calling itself the Laskar Pembela Islam (Defenders of Islam Army) attacked the Kafe Jimbani pub in Jakarta, destroying the liquor goods and vandalizing signs. The group's political wing, the Front Pembela Islam defended the action, saying that it should serve as a warning to all owners of entertainment outlets against promoting vices to Muslims.

Sources: AFP, Reuters, Associated Press, Channel News Asia

Time Warner Telecom (NETBLK-TWTC-NETBLK-3)
   3235 Intertech Drive, Suite 600
   Brookfield, WI 53045
   US

   Netname: TWTC-NETBLK-3
   Netblock: 66.162.0.0 - 66.162.255.255
   Maintainer: TWTC

   Coordinator:
      Time Warner Telecom  (ZT87-ARIN)  [email protected]
      800-898-6473

   Domain System inverse mapping provided by:

   NS1.MILW.TWTELECOM.NET	216.136.95.2
   NS1.IPLT.TWTELECOM.NET	64.132.94.250
   NS1.ORNG.TWTELECOM.NET	168.215.210.50

laskarjihad.or.id  -  laskarji1-DOM-IDNIC
Forum Komunikasi Ahlus Sunnah wal Jama'ah

Primary Server
	 ns3.hrwebservices.net.

Secondary Server
	ns4.hrwebservices.net.


Administratif Contact
	Arif Rahman  -  ar53-IDNIC
	Forum Komunikasi Ahlus Sunnah wal Jama'ah

	E-Mail : [email protected]
	Phone  : 62-024-448185
	Fax    : 62-024-448185

Billing Contact
	Andi Sugandi  -  as135-IDNIC
	CV Pajar Utama Sejahtera

	E-Mail : [email protected]
	Phone  : 62-21-4253465
	Fax    : 62-21-4253465

Techical Contact
	Abdussalam Sukarta  -  as22-IDNIC
	Indonesia WebSite Services

	E-Mail : [email protected]
	Phone  : 62-81-1162775
	Fax    : 62-21-8207987


Created by   : [email protected]
Last Updated : 20010323