Two men on a motorcycle threw a hand grenade at a crowd near a church in the restive eastern Indonesian city of Ambon, injuring three people, a report said.

The grenade was thrown in front of the Sejahtera Church in the village of Lateri in Ambon early on Saturday, Police Chief Leonidas Braskan was quoted by the Kompas newspaper as saying.

It was thrown into a group of men near a motor-taxi stand. None of those injured were in critical condition, Braskan said.

He said that choice of the location, in front of a church, indicated that the blast was meant to provoke.

Police were still questioning witnesses to try to find the assailants, said Braskan, who could not be reached on Sunday.

Ambon and some other parts of the Maluku islands were ravaged by three years of Muslim-Christian clashes that killed more than 5,000 people before a February 2002 peace pact took effect.

But sporadic violence has continued and tension between the two communities has remained high in Ambon and several of its surrounding small islands.