Ambon – A Muslim leader in this riot-hit eastern Indonesian city on Thursday warned the authorities against trying to expel a militant Muslim group blamed by many for the resurgence of sectarian violence here last week.

"If they [the security authorities] want to sent the Jihad [Holy War Force] away in a violent way, it will become a big problem and it will be politicized," said Yusuf Eli, an Ambon Muslim leader.

He said that the fact that the head of the security command overseeing the Maluku region, Brigadier General Max Tamaela, is a Christian, will be highlighted, "in a way that Muslims will think that the military commander hates Muslims."

Tamaela has expressed anger at the arrival of thousands of members of the Jihad force from Java island since end last month, despite a pledge by President Abdurrahman Wahid, a Muslim, that they would be barred from leaving Java.

The general has criticized authorities in Java for allowing the Jihad members to leave their ports. Javanese authorties have said that since the members of the group were unarmed when they embaerked, it was difficult to prevent them from leaving.

Eli also said that should the governor, Saleh Latuconsina, a Muslim, order the expulsion "we will kill him." "If they wanted to stop the Jihad, they should have stopped them in Java, at the place of embarkation and not when they are already here ... trying to send them back now is very dangerous," Eli said.

He claimed there were some 10,000 Jihad members in Ambon, some 1,000 of whom arrived last week. The authorities here had earlier said that more than 2,000 Jihad members had filtered into Ambon since the end of last month.

Many witnesses have said that Jihad members, recognizable by their white Arabic robes and carrying automatic weapons, have been in the forefront of attacks in the latest bout of violence that was started on May 16.

The last six days of violence in Ambon have claimed more than 46 lives, various reports have said. Eli said the Muslim camp had lost 26 people and 100 injured.

He also claimed they had mobilized 100,000 men on the northern coast of Ambon island and hat up to 500 of them could come to Ambon at a moment's notice at the slightest sign of clashes.

He said the sudden halt in the violence between Muslims and Christians in Ambon in the past three days was because both camps wanted to allow schoolchildren to take part in annual school final examinations.

The examinations were held on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nationwide. Eli said that since teachers would have to verify the examinations in the next few days, he did not expect further violence this week.

The wave of sectarian violence which has devastated the Malukus for more than a year began in Ambon in January 1999. Since the Muslim-Christian conflict began, more than 3,000 people have been killed, thousands of homes and buildings gutted and hundreds of thousands of people forced to flee to other islands and provinces.