Jakarta – At least nine people were killed and 15 others injured in an attack by Muslims Tuesday on a Christian village in Ambon, the capital of Indonesia's restive Maluku islands, a report and church worker said.

The Muslim attackers were aided by soldiers during the attack on the village of Hatiwe Besar, said Sammy Weileruni of the Christian coordinating post at the Maranatha church in Ambon. Weileruni said all the dead were Christians.

The Antara news agency quoted an employee of the state Haulussy hospital in Ambon as saying that 22 dead and wounded had been brought there from the violence in Hative and several other nearby Christian villages. Seven were already dead or died after arrival.

Antara also said that two other men were killed but their bodies were not taken to the hospital. One of them died inside the car that was torched by attackers.

Max Siahaya, also from the Maranatha church in Ambon, said the attackers had used mortars and automatic rifles. Weileruni said the assailants had come from other parts of the city and some of them had travelled by boat across the bay that divides the city. Hatiwe Besar is located near Ambon's Patimura airport.

"There was a navy ship at that time but security personnel didn't do anything to stop the attackers," Weileruni said. Muslim support groups could not be reached immedately for comment.

Earlier in the day a worker at Ambon's main state Haulussy hospital said six people had been brought in with gunshot wounds. Antara said the attackers were from several Muslim villages along Ambon Bay, east of Hatiwe Besar. Weileruni said several houses were also burned in the attack.

Siahaya said a priest, Z. Soumeru, was taken away by uniformed soldiers and that his whereabouts was unknown. "We do not know whether they were real soldiers or just people trying to pass themselves off as soldiers. What is clear is he [Soumeru] was taken away and we don't know where he has been taken to or how is he now," Siahaya said.

Meanwhile Antara reported that two men who had been arrested trying to smuggle in ammunition and explosives into Ternate, in North Maluku, in July had been sentenced to three months jail each. The two were separately sentenced at the Ternate court earlier this month, the head of the local prosecutor's office, Suud Azus, said according to Antara.

One of them was caught while disembarking in Ternate with 14 bullets and 1,097 bomb detonators on July 22. Another was caught trying to land with 29 ammunition magazines for M-16 rifles. Antara said a third suspect who had been arrested with 49 rounds of ammunition and two handguns, would be tried soon.

The Maluku islands have been torn apart by almost two years of Muslim-Christian conflict, which has left some 4,000 people of both faiths dead and a trail of destruction.