Bomb injures 14 in Indonesia's Ambon island

JAKARTA, Mar 3 (Reuters) A small homemade bomb filled with nails exploded at a port in Indonesia's Ambon island today injuring 14 people, police said.

The blast occurred soon after passengers disembarked from a ship that had just arrived in Ambon, part of the Moluccas islands, from Sulawesi island, Most of the injured were street vendors and motorbike drivers while three of them were passengers, Moluccas police spokesman Tommi Napitupulu told Reuters.

''Our initial investigation shows it was a low explosion, but the components of the piece show it had high potential for wounding. It contained small iron nails of about 2 cm each,'' Napitupulu said.

The Moluccas islands, 2,300 km east of Jakarta, saw vicious fighting between Muslims and Christians from 1999 to 2002 that killed more than 5,000.

The conflict also drew Muslim militants from groups such as the al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah, a Southeast Asian network blamed for a series of bomb attacks across Indonesia.

Since a 2002 truce between Muslim and Christian communities, sectarian violence has largely subsided on the islands.

REUTERS PDM HT1055