2005 Tentena market bombings - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The 2005 Tentena market bombings occurred on 28 May 2005 in Tentena, Central Sulawesi

Central Sulawesi

Central Sulawesi is a province of Indonesia located in the centre of Sulawesi. It was established on 13 April 1964....

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

. Two improvised explosive devices

Improvised explosive device

An improvised explosive device , also known as a roadside bomb, is a homemade bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action...

, set to explode 15 minutes apart, detonated during the morning at a market in the center of Tentena, killing 22 and wounding at least 40 more. The fatalities included a Christian clergyman and a 3-year-old boy. Several Islamic militants were later charged and sentenced to jail terms in 2007 and 2010 for their roles in organizing the bombing, among other sectarian attacks in the Poso

Poso

Poso is the main port and transportation hub for the northeastern coast of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. Its geographical location is .Poso is one of ten regencies in Central Sulawesi Province, located exactly in the middle of the province on the shore of the gulf of Tomini, right in the central...

region.

The bomb blasts are linked to sectarian conflict between Muslims and Christians in Central Sulawesi

Central Sulawesi

Central Sulawesi is a province of Indonesia located in the centre of Sulawesi. It was established on 13 April 1964....

that killed at least 577 people and displaced another 86,000 during three-year period before a government-sponsored truce agreed in December 2001. Those convicted for crimes related to the attack spoke of seeking revenge for previous atrocities committed against the Muslim community within Poso and the bombings were carried out on the fifth anniversary

Anniversary

An anniversary is a day that commemorates or celebrates a past event that occurred on the same day of the year as the initial event. For example, the first event is the initial occurrence or, if planned, the inaugural of the event. One year later would be the first anniversary of that event...

of a massacre of at least 165 Muslims in Sintuwu Lemba village

2000 Walisongo school massacre

The Walisongo school massacre is the name given to a series of attacks by Christian militants on the 28 May 2000 upon several predominantly Muslim villages around Poso town, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia as part of a broader sectarian conflict in the Poso region. Officially the total number killed in...

, Central Sulawesi.

The explosions

The first device detonated at around 8:15 a.m. and witnesses observed many of the victims who had come to help those injured in the first blast were killed by the second, larger explosion that left a 3-foot-deep crater. The blasts flattened food stands and also damaged a bank, a Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

church and a police station in central Tentena town. The Poso

Poso

district police chief announced another, unexploded bomb was later discovered outside a nearby church.

The Jakarta Post initially reported 27 people were killed in the attack, citing volunteers at the Tentena General Hospital

Hospital

A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....

, however casualty figures were revised down to 22. A dentist volunteering at the same clinic stated that a total of 57 residents had been treated for injury at the poorly equipped facility, describing that "many suffered wounds in their internal organs," and estimated around 20 locals had been seriously wounded.

A trial for a cleric convicted of financing the attack later heard four militants had split into two groups to plant the devices in the meat and produce section in the market of the predominantly Christan town. Ardin Djanatu and Amril Ngiode carried and planted one while accomplice Syaiful Anam planted another bomb nearby, in front of the market structure, and the timers for the two devices were set to detonate 15 minutes apart.

Ngiode descried that the bombs had been assembled out of TNT and sulphur, with large pieces of iron added to create shrapnel

Shrapnel

Shrapnel shells were anti-personnel artillery munitions which carried a large number of individual bullets close to the target and then ejected them to allow them to continue along the shell's trajectory and strike the target individually. They relied almost entirely on the shell's velocity for...

. One weapon had been concealed in a cardboard box and transported to the market in a black plastic bag disguised with vegetables. Explained to the court also by Ngiode was that the initial target was actually a Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

school adjacent to the Tentena market, but that during their survey the convicted terrorists found the market was more crowded.

Investigation

Prior to the bombing, in January 2005, authorities had discovered 60 homemade bombs

Improvised explosive device

An improvised explosive device , also known as a roadside bomb, is a homemade bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action...

in an abandoned house in Poso

Poso

and, earlier in May, the Indonesian police had arrested three Muslim extremists in Central Sulawesi

Central Sulawesi

Central Sulawesi is a province of Indonesia located in the centre of Sulawesi. It was established on 13 April 1964....

for alleged involvement in another attack using similar devices.

As of June 2005, 13 suspects had been arrested as part of the investigation into the attacks, including an escaped convict arrested near Tentena shortly after the bombings and the head warden of the main jail in the Muslim town of Poso. Ten other suspects in the Tentena and other attacks were arrested in early 2007 also.

In 2007 Anam and Djanatu were convicted with planting the devices in Tentena and sentenced to 18 years and 14 years jail

Jail

A jail is a short-term detention facility in the United States and Canada.Jail may also refer to:In entertainment:*Jail , a 1966 Malayalam movie*Jail , a 2009 Bollywood movie...

respectively while Ngiode received a 15 year sentence for assembling the bombs and other charges of possessing illegal weapons and assault

Assault

In law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear violence. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more...

. The militants sentenced were among 6 Muslim militants jailed for crimes against Christian

Christian

residents around Poso

Poso

since the 2001 Malino Peace Treaty including the beheading of three school girls. The alleged bomb designer, identified as Taufik Buraga by Ngiode, however still remains at large.

In a 2010 trial in Jakarta

Jakarta

Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...

, hard-line Islamic cleric Eko Budi Wardoyo was convicted and sentenced to 10 years jail for providing funding to the perpetrators to assemble the two bombs

Terrorist Financing

Terrorist financing came into limelight after the events of terrorism on 9/11. The US passed the USA PATRIOT Act to, among other reasons, attempt thwarting the financing of terrorism and anti-money laundering making sure these were given some sort of adequate focus by US financial institutions...

and was identified as the primary adviser behind the attack. At the cleric's trial, as witness, Ngiode gave testimony that Wardoyo “used to say that jihad meant paying back the Christians for what they had done to the Muslim communities in Poso,” and that he had been taught to pursue jihad

Jihad

Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...

almost exclusively by the cleric, describing the attack as having been motivated by revenge.

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