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...

AN Australian trained with Spanish al-Qa'ida militants in a camp in war-torn Poso, central Sulawesi, according to intelligence reports. Security expert Ken Conboy told The Australian the terrorist training camp was set up in an abandoned Christian village about 10km east of Poso. There was some al-Qa'ida funding for the camp, he said, but he was unsure whether it was for food, transport or buildings. At least one photo exists of militants in the Poso camp. Mr Conboy said the Spanish militants abandoned the camp late in 2001. He speculated that the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US had...

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...

A WOMAN died when a bomb exploded on a bus near Poso, a town in central Sulawesi with a history of violence between Muslims and Christians, media reports said today. It was the second deadly bus bombing in the region in the past two months. On June 7, four people died in a similar incident. The Jakarta Post newspaper said a woman died and four other passengers were injured in yesterday's blast, which occurred just outside Poso, a district capital and the site of much of the religious violence. It said nobody had claimed responsibility for the explosion. Authorities in...