Gunman kills woman priest, wounds four in Indonesian church attack

JAKARTA : An unidentified attacker sprayed bullets into an Indonesian church during an evening serviceon 18th, killing a woman priest and injuring four others, police said.

The attack was the latest in a series by suspected Islamic extremists on Christian targets in Central Sulawesi province, where hundreds of police and troops have been deployed to prevent a new outbreak of sectarian conflict.

One of a group of five attackers burst into the Effata Presbyterian church in the provincial capital Palu and opened fire around 7 pm, said provincial police spokesman Victor Batara.

Reverend Susianti Tinulele, 29, was killed on the spot while four others were wounded, Batara said, adding that one of the injured was critically ill in hospital.

He said descriptions of the attackers, who arrived on two motorbikes, have been distributed to police across the province.

In Jakarta, acting security minister Hari Sabarno said the "inhuman" attackers were trying to trigger renewed conflict. Up to 1,000 people were killed in Muslim–Christian battles which broke out in the province in 2000 and which were largely ended by a government–brokered peace pact in December 2001.

The attack was intended "to create a horizontal conflict," Sabarno said, using the Indonesian term for conflict between different sectors of society.

President Megawati Sukarnoputri has ordered that the attackers be caught as soon as possible, Sabarno said. He urged police and troops to renew efforts to disarm civilians.

National Police Chief General Da'i Bachtiar flew to Palu earlier Monday to monitor the hunt for the culprits.

The church attack was the fifth on Christians in the province this year.

In April at least one gunman sprayed bullets into a church in the Poso district during a choir practice. Seven people, including a four year–old girl, were wounded.

Earlier a Christian minister was shot dead in front of his wife. Another man was killed and a female university lecturer wounded during other shootings.

In the worst bloodshed of last year, gunmen in October killed 10 people in attacks on mainly Christian villages. A senior security official blamed those killings on the Al–Qaeda–linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) regional terror group.

On Saturday evening a bomb exploded in Poso town outside a hall where a music and dance festival was being held but no one was hurt. The wife of an Indonesian soldier was stabbed to death near a military barracks at about the same time.

In a February report, the International Crisis Group think–tank warned that new Muslim terror groups are emerging in Indonesia and could eventually prove more dangerous than JI.

The report said a group called Mujahidin KOMPAK was largely to blame for the killing of Christians in Poso in recent months. Its leaders were sometimes drawn from JI but it remained institutionally distinct.

– AFP