Jakarta – Indonesian police arrested seven members of a Muslim group yesterday over recent vigilante-style raids on nightspots in Jakarta.

Officers arrested the men at the headquarters of the Islamic Defenders Front organisation, a Jakarta police spokesman, Colonel Bahrul Alam, said.

They are being questioned over attacks early on Friday on two late-night pool centres and a discotheque, he said. The activists broke windows and smashed equipment. One person was injured.

The police have been criticised for not preventing the raids, which were filmed by several local television stations.

The front, one of several hardline groups in the world's most populous Muslim nation, occasionally vandalises bars and gambling joints which it considers to be contravening Islamic teachings.

It is a fierce critic of Indonesia's secular government and has also threatened to hold large protest demonstrations if Washington invades Iraq.

However, analysts say the group's actions are motivated more by the opportunities that they provide for extortion than by religion. Many of its followers are poorly educated and are little more than gangsters, analysts say.