Market nail bomb kills eight in Indonesia

A bomb ripped through a crowded market in an Indonesian province plagued by sectarian violence early today, killing eight people and wounding 45 others. Many victims were believed to be Christians.

Television footage showed police carrying lifeless, bloodied bodies into ambulances. One man, apparently unhurt, was holding his head in his hands and screaming.

Brig Gen Oegroseno, police chief of Central Sulawesi province, said the bomb that went off in the town of Palu was packed with ball bearings and nails.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono condemned the blast and urged police to investigate whether it was linked to a series of other attacks on Christians in the province earlier this year.

The bomb tore through the market slaughterhouse, which also sold meat directly to the public, at around 7am local time, when it was packed with people buying pork for Saturday night’s New Year celebrations.

“The explosion was so loud, I couldn’t hear for a couple of seconds,” said Tega, a resident who lived nearby. Like many Indonesians, he uses one name. “I ran out of my house and saw bodies lying around.”

Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim nation and most people practise a moderate form of the faith. But attacks against Christians have increased in recent years amid a global rise in Islamic radicalism.

Central Sulawesi was the scene of fierce battles between Muslims and Christians in 2001 and 2002 that killed about 1,000 people, and violence has flared anew in recent months.

In October, unidentified assailants beheaded three Christian high school girls in Poso, east of Palu. In May, two bombs in the Christian-dominated town of Tentena killed 20 people.

Police have questioned several suspects in those attacks, but have not formally brought charges against anyone.

Security officials and former militants told The Associated Press in recent interviews that terrorists linked to the Jemaah Islamiyah terror network were behind the renewed attacks on Christians on the island.

Jemaah Islamiyah, which has ties to al Qaida, has been blamed for a series of bloody bombings in Indonesia since 2000, including two strikes on Bali island that together killed 222 people, many of them foreigners.

One Christian clergyman said today he was losing patience with the lack of arrests after sectarian bombings.

“Whenever an incident takes place, senior officials ask us to tell the people to remain unprovoked,” said Rinaldy Damanik, the leader of the Synod Churches of Central Sulawesi.

“We are like firefighters. When will the authorities be able to reveal the barbaric perpetrators in the province?”