Indonesia police kill nine militants in Poso

JAKARTA, Jan 22 (Reuters) Indonesian police killed nine suspected Islamic militants during a raid today on their hideout in the troubled Sulawesi island, the area police chief said.

One policeman was killed in the gunfight that erupted following the raid in the Poso region where unrest has been simmering since the authorities began a crackdown on militants.

''Nine from the armed civilian group were killed while one officer died. This is the group that have terrorised Poso,'' Badroidin Haiti, police chief of Central Sulawesi, told Reuters.

Police arrested 22 suspected militants and seized ammunition and bombs from the rebel base. Some of the rebels were trained in Afghanistan and Mindanao in the Philippines, Haiti said.

Central Sulawesi has been tense since the execution of three Christian militants in September over their role in Muslim-Christian violence that gripped the region from 1998 to 2001.

Haiti said the gunbattle began early today in Poso's Tanah Runtuh neighbourhood, with militants using firearms and bombs to fight the police.

Another policeman told Reuters sporadic gunfights were still occurring.

Separately, Central Sulawesi police spokesman Mohammad Kilat said the raid was supported by Poso residents.

''We are still hounding other members of the group. The public has asked us to paralyse them. Some of those people are linked to old cases,'' he said, citing the beheadings of three Christian girls in 2005.

Three members of the gang blamed for those attacks are on trial in Jakarta, but some suspects are thought to be still at large.

Three years of sectarian violence in Central Sulawesi killed more than 2,000 people before a peace accord took effect in late 2001. There has been sporadic violence since.

In October, an armed group clashed with police and set fire to a Christian church in Poso, while a Christian priest was shot in Palu, sparking fears of a return to sectarian violence.

Indonesian police shot dead what they called a senior member of the regional militant group Jemaah Islamiah earlier this month, while on the same day a mob killed a policeman at a funeral for another militant.

Around 85 per cent of Indonesia's 220 million people follow Islam, but some areas in eastern Indonesia like Poso have roughly equal numbers of Muslim and Christians.

REUTERS SP HT1732