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Indonesia's Bombings Raise Public Outcry And Suspects
JAKARTA (AFP) – As a series of Christmas Eve bombings at churches across predominantly-Muslim Indonesia Monday killed at least 14 people and injured 95 others, reports of public outcry and warnings of more blasts were followed by Indonesian police announcing the identification of two suspects.
The national police chief's intelligence assistant, Inspector General Ansa'ad Bei, said two people had been declared suspects for building homemade bombs, the Satunet news service reported.
Bei said the two were among a group of at least five people believed to have been constructing bombs in a rented house in the West Java capital of Bandung, when one exploded accidentally Sunday afternoon.
Three people were killed in the explosion, while two others were hospitalized with injuries.
"They've now become suspects," Bei was quoted as telling a media conference, by the Detik.com news service.
He said the two suspects were not yet well enough to be questioned intensively.
National police chief General Suryo Bimantoro said early Monday that 14 people, including two policemen, had been killed in the blasts, which struck during and after Christmas Eve mass services.
The explosions raised suspicions that a well-organized group - including elements within the security forces - was responsible.
"Intelligence information which has been obtained by the police said that there are still efforts to launch similar actions in other... houses of worship," top Security Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told reporters.
Yudhoyono said the bombings could be carried out in the next few days by the same group on places of worship of other religions with the aim of setting communities at war with each other.
Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, a moderate Muslim, said the aim of the bombings was "to shake the government, create panic and fear so that the government cannot function."
He said the almost simultaneous explosions, in eight cities late on Sunday, showed the bombers were "well organized" and used to cooperating.
Rights lawyer Luhut Pangaribuan from the Indonesian Association of Legal Aid and Human Rights (PBHI), a Christian, said the bombers appeared to be familiar with explosives, planning and coordination.
"I think that civilians are incapable of this," he said, indirectly accusing unidentified elements within the security forces.
But Yudhoyono said so far nothing in the investigations indicated the hand of the armed forces or any other particular group.
National police forensics chief Erwin Map told journalists that some of the bombs contained trinitrotoluene (TNT), in addition to substances such as sulfur and phosphate.
The "conventional" devices were also different from those used in several past bombing attacks in the capital this year, he added.
A PBHI statement said "elements of the old political forces are the ones most interested in scuttling a political transition towards democracy and also in possession of the ability to conduct those savage actions."
"This kind of precise operation is organized by a group which are well coordinated and well budgeted," presidential spokesman Wimar Witoelar said.
Secretary general of the National Commission on Human Rights, Asmara Nababan said he believed the Christian community was only "an intermediary target" and the real target was the government.
National Police Chief General Suroyo Bimantoro said 18 bombs were set off in eight cities, killing 14 people and seriously injuring 47. His spokesman, Brigadier General Saleh Saaf said later Monday that the injured numbered 95, many of them in critical condition.
Police had also defused another 18 bombs - 16 in North Sumatra and two in Jakarta, police said.
Christmas mass was conducted in a subdued mood, witnesses said.
At Jakarta's Roman Catholic cathedral, where bags were searched at the entrance, Cardinal Julius Darmaatmadja called for calm and advised against "finger-pointing".
The bombings prompted a flurry of meetings between religious groups and the authorities and a chorus of public indignation, including from Muslim organizations.
The radical Muslim group Laskar Jihad (Jihad Warrior), widely blamed for an escalation of the bloody two-year-long conflict between Muslims and Christians in the Malukus islands, distanced itself from the bombings and condemned them as the doings of "immoral and irresponsible actors."
A meeting of 36 noted religious leaders, intellectuals and activists made a plea for calm and agreed to form its own fact-finding team.
Some 10.5 million, or five percent, of Indonesia's 210 million people are Christians.
Recent violence between Christians and Muslims has been largely confined to the Maluku islands where the two communities have been locked in a bitter conflict that has killed 5,000 people since January of 1999.
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