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Indonesian Police
Arrest Leader of Militant Group
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The
Washington Post
Reuters
Sunday
May 5, 2002; Page A19 |
JAKARTA, Indonesia, May 4 --
Indonesian police said today they had arrested the head of a key
Islamic militant group in connection with last weekend's violence
in the eastern city of Ambon that killed at least 12 people and
raised fresh doubts about a fragile peace pact signed in February.
Jafar Umar Thalib, commander of
Laskar Jihad, was arrested in the East Java capital of Surabaya
and flown to Jakarta for questioning, said national police
spokesman Saleh Saaf.
"He has violated the law --
has been preaching and insulting the government and has provoked
Muslims and asked them to prepare bombs," Saaf said at a news
conference.
Reports of Thalib's arrest sparked
fresh unrest today in Ambon, the capital of the Moluccas, formerly
known as the Spice Islands, where the military fired warning shots
and tear gas to disperse several thousand Muslim protesters.
The official Antara news agency
reported that three people were wounded in the protest, and
hospital staff in Ambon said that one person had been killed.
Laskar Jihad is a hard-line militia
that has fought to evict Christians and implement sharia
Islamic law in Indonesia, primarily in the Moluccas.
The group, which has denied it has
ties to international terrorism, has sent thousands of men to the
island chain 1,400 miles east of Jakarta. More than 5,000 people
have been killed in Muslim-Christian fighting there since 1999.
Despite the peace pact, the
Moluccas remain under a civil emergency status.
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