Reinforcements sent to probe Poso attacks
Irvan NR and Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Palu/Jakarta
The Central Sulawesi provincial police dispatched dozens of detectives on Monday to the ravaged Poso regency to investigate recent attacks in two subdistricts here that killed four people.
In a separate development, a home-made bomb was found on Jl. Pulau Nias in Poso regency, adding to the already tension situation.
Poso Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Abdi Dharma said that the detectives had been divided into two teams.
"One team has been deployed to Kilotrans village in Poso Pesisir district, while another team has been dispatched to Marowo village in Ulu Bongka district," said Abdi Dharma.
Kilotrans and Marowo are the two subdistricts where the attacks occurred on Saturday.
The armed attacks killed four people and badly injured four others. The deaths and injuries were caused by gunfire.
Dharma said that the teams were dispatched to the two subdistricts on Monday morning in order to help local police expedite their investigations.
The teams, together with local detectives, then questioned witnesses and collected evidence in the two subdistricts.
The detectives have so far been able to identify the physical characteristic of the attackers. However, Dharma refused to go into details, saying that the police were still investigating the case.
He acknowledged that police had difficulties in providing security in Poso due to the limited number of officers available and the difficult geographic terrain.
Most of Poso was thickly forested, providing perfect cover for any would-be attackers. They could quickly launch attacks and then melt back into the jungle, he said.
"We have tightened security in those areas that had been susceptible to attack, but they simply launched their attacks in other places," he said on Monday afternoon.
Since the attack on their village on Saturday night, the residents of Marowo have reportedly been taking refuge to safer areas. However, Dharma said that he had no information on the number of residents who had fled their homes.
Despite the arrival of additional detectives, gunfire was still to be heard on Monday in the Poso Pesisir subdistrict of Tiwaa, only a few kilometers away from the subdistricts where the attacks took place on Saturday.
No one was hurt in the latest shooting incident.
Locals immediately reported the incident to the police.
Meanwhile in Jakarta, a police spokesman said that the bomb, which was found on Jl. Nias, was composed of low explosives.
The bomb was found in the early morning in a ruined building on Jl. Nias, and was defused by the police bomb squad, said Brig. Gen. Soenarko, a spokesman for the National Police.
He added that as of Monday, 600 reinforcements from the police's paramilitary Mobile Brigade, one Bomb Squad unit (20 officers) and one police intelligence unit (20 officers) had been deployed to Poso.
In addition, a further 700 soldiers have been drafted into the area.
Poso has been the seen of violence since 1999, when sectarian clashes between Muslims and Christians first broke out in the regency. At least 2,000 people have been killed in the bloody conflict since then. The communal clashes subsided after the government-sponsored Malino Accord in 2001, but regular attacks are still occurring in the regency.