Posted on 03/10/2006 11:04:42 AM PST by The Lion Roars
A small bomb exploded on Friday outside a Hindu temple on an Indonesian island that has been plagued by religious violence, seriously wounding a man who was guarding the compound, police said.
The blast on the outskirts of Poso, a coastal town on Sulawesi island, was caused by a low-intensity bomb that was placed in the home of the temple's guard, said Poso's deputy police chief Maj Andreas Wayan.
It detonated when the 40-year-old man, Nengah Sugiarta, opened the door, causing the roof and wooden walls to collapse, he said.
"Whoever did this wanted to create panic and spread terror here in Poso," Mr Wayan said, adding that police found black powder, nails, shrapnel and a battery at the scene, indicating the bomb was homemade.
Hundreds of onlookers gathered around the temple after the blast, which riddled Sugiarta's legs and waist with shrapnel and wood. The Hindu man, who has been the temple's guard for 15 years, was taken to a nearby hospital.
Some 3,000 security personnel have been deployed to the region, where Muslim-Christian clashes in 2001-2002 left more than 1,000 dead following a resurgence of violence several months ago. Most of the victims in the latest attacks, including market bombings and the beheadings of three school girls, have been Christians.
Mr Wayan said it was too early to say who was behind Friday's attack - the first to target Hindus in Poso, a city 1,600 kilometres (1,000 miles) northeast of Jakarta.
Police questioned three residents who were near the temple at the time of the blast, he said, providing no other details.
Though nearly 90 percent of Indonesia's 210 million people are Muslim, Poso's population has an almost equal number of Christians and also a small number of Hindus, most of whom arrived from the island of Bali in the last three decades.
The Government moved thousands of Hindus to Sulawesi and other islands after the 1963 eruption of the Agung volcano, one of the most powerful in the 20th century, devastated dozens of villages on the mountainside in eastern Bali.
A local Hindu leader, I Wayan Sumariasa, condemned Friday's explosion and questioned the motive, saying his community had good relations with Muslims and Christians living nearby.
"I don't understand why our temple became the target," he said. "We don't know who would have done this."
On Friday, a National Police spokesman Col. Bambang Kuncoko confirmed that several suspects in terrorism crimes have been detained and questioned by anti-terror police. The detainees were not believed to have connections with Friday's blast, however.
I think I know the answer !!
Jemaah Islamiya is the one quoted on other sources.
Evangelical Christians? Yah think?
Those damn Mormons again!
I am thinking disgruntled Buddhists.
Background:
They seem to have revved up their attacks on Hindus lately.
Mennonites.
That needs to be said in an outside voice for sure.
I've read that Indonesia and Malaysia were both primarily Hindu primarily until fairly recently (the last 5 or 6 hundred years). Hindus especially brahmans fled to Bali and that's why Bali is still essentially Hindu. Note Garuda Airlines. All Muslims in those countries (practically speaking) are descendents of Hindus (probably some Buddhists as well) who were forced into Islam.
Sickening. Let them all go to their roots and convert back. Anything would be better. But, of course, Islamic law is that no one can convert out of Islam.
=)
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