Police Detain One after Extremist Attack on Christian Market in Indonesia

As the world prepared to celebrate the new year of 2006, events were hampered by the killing of seven people in a terrorist nail bomb attack on a Christian market place yesterday.

|TOP|Indonesian police have reported today that they have already detained one person and are currently questioning him as they also step up road blocks across the city of Palu in attempts to capture those responsible for the attrocities.

The spokesperson for the police in the Central Sulawesi Province, Ruis Adam, said today that police had also raided several locations in efforts to find the killers.

Adam said, "A man has been detained. We are interrogating him."

Although the man was detained on Saturday evening near the site of the explosion, he has not specifically been named as a suspect.

The blast occurred in the centre of a busy Christian market place, following warnings of militant violence over the Christmas and New Year period in the world's most populous Muslim country.

The market area where the bomb was set off was selling pork, a meat which Muslims, that make up 85 percent of the country's population, strictly forbid.

|AD|The bomb has been reported as being homemade, and was stuffed full of nails to cause greater devastation and injuries. Approximately 53 were injured in the attack in addition to those killed.

The province of Central Sulawesi has been overwhelmed by violence and religious tension since the late-1990's, and fighting between Muslims and Christians over the three-year period from 1998-2001 saw more than 2,000 people killed.

The Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono condemned the attack, and ordered an immediate investigation to find the killers.

Recently in October 2005, three Christian teenage girls were beheaded near Poso, and last May in Central Sulawesi a bomb blast killed 22.

Warnings regarding the possibility of a bombing or attack happening over the Christmas and New Year period had been highlighted by the police weeks ago, and security had been stepped up across the country to combat the threat. However, the increased efforts did not manage to stop the latest terror attack in the region.

Even though the huge majority of Muslims in the country are peaceful towards other religions, the number of active militant extremist Muslims have increased rapidly over recent years.