More Police to Hunt Church Attacker

(AFP) – Indonesia sent police reinforcements to Central Sulawesi province on Wednesday to join the hunt for a man who gunned down a woman priest during a shooting spree in a packed church. Churches in the provincial capital Palu flew flags at half-mast following Sunday’s attack on the Effata Presbyterian church — the latest in a series by suspected Islamic extremists on Christian targets in the religiously mixed region. Some 20 to 30 police reinforcements were expected to arrive by air in Palu later Wednesday, said provincial police spokesman Victor Batara. He said several new police teams, including officers from the central forensic laboratory, were already in town. Batara said police have identified a suspect but declined to provide a name. He said a new operation to disarm the population began Tuesday. National police chief Gen. Da’i Bachtiar said there are no signs so far that the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) regional terror group, said to have links to al-Qaeda, was involved in the church attack. JI was linked by one senior official to the killing of 10 people in attacks on mainly Christian villages in Central Sulawesi last October. President Megawati Soekarnoputri has ordered an intensive hunt for the gunman who killed the priest and wounded four others, one of them seriously. It was the fifth attack on Christians in the province this year. Officials said the aim was to trigger a new round of Muslim-Christian battles after up to 1,000 people died in parts of the province between 2000 and 2001. The violence was concentrated in Palu and in the district of Poso.