Free Republic

SNIPPET: "Indonesian anti-terror police, Densus 88 secure a terror suspect's house during a raid in Mojosongo, Solo in Central Java. Indonesian police have arrested 11 members of an Islamic group allegedly planning attacks on American diplomatic missions, a spokesman says." SNIPPET: "The group had planned to hit the US embassy and a US consulate, as well as a building near the Australian embassy in the capital Jakarta that houses the office of American mining giant Freeport-McMoran, police said. Police said they were from a new outfit called HASMI, the Sunni Movement for Indonesian Society, and explosives and a bomb-making manual...

Recent violence in Poso (Central Sulawesi) suggests a need to revise assessments about the nature and gravity of the terrorist threat in Indonesia. While the shorter term prospects are somewhat encouraging, there is an under appreciated longer term security risk. In October 2003, masked gunmen attacked Christian villagers in the Morowali and Poso districts of Central Sulawesi, killing thirteen. The attacks took many outside the area by surprise. In December 2001, after three years of bitter sectarian conflict in which hundreds of Muslims and Christians had been killed, leaders of the warring parties had signed a peace agreement, the Malino...

Five people were killed and hundreds of houses were burned to the ground during an attack on three Christian villages in Indonesia's Central Sulawesi, residents and the military said. The villages were in the district of Poso, which has been seen more than two years of sectarian clashes between Muslims and Christians which have left between 500 and 1,000 dead, and tens of thousands homeless. "Five people were killed in the attack on Silanca, Sepe and Batu Gencu on Monday," said Noldy Tako, of the Christian Crisis Center in the town of Tentena. He said the three villages were situated...