Jakarta – The first wave of hardline Muslim jihad fighters arrived in Indonesia's bloodied Spice Islands yesterday with the army saying it was powerless to stop them.
Regional military chief Brigadier-General Max Tamaela was quoted by the official Antara news agency as saying his troops could only act if the fighters caused trouble. "We could not prevent their arrival. But if they behave negatively, they will have to deal with security officials," he said.
He added that the fighters, numbering less than 200, will be under close surveillance. Their ferry, which left from the East Java port of Surabaya on Friday, was escorted by two navy patrol boats as it arrived.
The men are from the radical Ahlus-Sunnah Wal Jama'ah Forum which plans a jihad, or holy war, against Christians in the islands.
Human-rights groups say thousands of people have already died since fighting broke out in January last year. Hundreds more jihad warriors left Surabaya on Friday bound for Ambon and Forum leaders say another 3,000 will follow, possibly as soon as today.
The authorities fear that the arrival of hardline Muslim fighters will spark increased bloodshed between Christians and Muslims in the islands, located about 2,300 km east of Jakarta.
Antara did not say if the jihad fighters were armed, but guns, machetes, bows and arrows and homemade petrol bombs are widely available on the islands.
Earlier, the agency also reported that government soldiers shot four Muslim militants as they tried to intervene in the sectarian fighting in the Jailolo sub-district of Halmahera island, in Maluku.
A witness, Mr Sarif Mohdar, told Antara the soldiers from the "Bull Raiders" army unit opened fire on the Muslim fighters at point blank range. He said four other militants were caught and tortured by the troops and later taken to a hospital on neighbouring Ternate island.
Friday's clash was the second deadly encounter last week between security forces and members of the Jihad Force. On Wednesday, four militants were killed and 17 wounded in clashes with troops in Ternate, the main town in North Maluku province, when the soldiers tried to block them from travelling to Halmahera.
Meanwhile, the head of the Jihad Force based at Yogyakarta in central Java, Mr Jaffar Umar Thalib, denied his group's involvement in recent clashes in Maluku.
"The victims were locals and our group has no formal alliance with the Jihad Force in Maluku led by Abu Bakar Wahid," Mr Thalib told The Jakarta Post daily newspaper.
However, he said 149 volunteers from his group had travelled to Maluku last month. They were unarmed, he said. "The purpose of our jihad mission is to restore the morale of the Muslim community, which has been destroyed. "Our mission is to reawaken their mental spirit," he said.