Teenagers beheaded on the way to school

Indonesian police stepped up security patrols yesterday in the Poso area of Sulawesi, plagued by sectarian violence for years, after three teenaged Christian girls were beheaded.

Six machete-wielding men attacked the 16 to 19-year-old students as they walked to school on Saturday on the eastern island, police said.

"So far no witness has been questioned and no suspect arrested," a police spokesman, Made Rai, said from Poso, about 1500 kilometres north-east of Jakarta. A fourth student survived and had described the attack.

Mr Rai said about 1000 police, including reinforcements from other parts of the country, were securing the remote regency of Poso, with another 300 officers due to arrive yesterday.

The three headless bodies of the girls, dressed in brown uniforms, were left at the site of the attack. Residents found their heads at separate locations two hours later.

Din Syamsuddin, leader of Indonesia's second-largest Muslim group, Muhammadiyah, warned of more violence in Poso if police do not catch the perpetrators soon.

"Similar murders are likely to occur in the future because there are some parties wishing communal conflict to flare up," Din Syamsuddin was quoted as saying by Indonesia's official news agency, Antara.

Muslim-Christian clashes in the Poso area killed 2000 people between 1998 and 2001 when a peace deal was agreed.

While the worst violence abated after the deal, there have been sporadic outbreaks since. Bombings in May in the Christian town of Tentena killed 22 people.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has condemned the killings, which he described as "sadist and inhuman crimes".

Reuters