Violence Mars Christmas In Pakistan; Indonesian Christians Enjoy Quiet Holiday

Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - Asia marked Christmas this year under a cloud of terrorism, and while church services went off without feared disruption in Indonesia, Christians in Pakistan were once again targeted by those hostile to their faith.

Violence also hit the Philippines, although security forces have yet to determine whether a bombing that killed 13 people was politically or criminally motivated.

In Pakistan, a hand grenade attack on a church in the center of the country on Christmas night left three children dead and a dozen others hurt, police in Punjab province reported.

The grenade was lobbed into a village Presbyterian church by two masked men during a service, they said. One of the three victims was reported to be a girl as young as six, while the other two were young teenage girls.

Earlier, a large Protestant Church in Islamabad held a service attended by many foreigners that went off without disturbance. On Christmas Eve, police discovered a bag containing ammunition and hand grenades close by.

In another incident in Pakistan, nine people were hurt Tuesday when a small explosion occurred near a hotel in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad. The cause was not immediately known.

Pakistan has a small Christian community, which has been hit by a number of bloody attacks since October 2001.

Among them, 16 worshippers were killed during a church service in Bahawalpur; five -including two Americans - in a church in the capital; six at a Christian school in the north; four at a Presbyterian mission hospital; and seven at the offices of a Christian charity in Karachi.

Other attacks have hit Western, rather than explicitly Christian, targets.

The attacks have been widely attributed to Islamic groups - some of which were banned this year by President Pervez Musharraf - angered by the U.S.-led war against terrorism and the perceived association with the West of indigenous Christians.

The Pakistan News Service, in an editorial marking Christmas, blamed the string of attacks on the country's bitter enemy, India, and specifically its foreign intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing.

Meanwhile in the southern Philippines, the military have named a large Muslim group as the likeliest culprit in a Christmas Eve bombing that killed a town mayor and 12 others.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), one of several groups fighting for an Islamic state in the south of the predominantly Roman Catholic archipelago, denied the accusation.

Police in the area have been more cautious in laying blame, saying the motive for the attack remained unclear.

The slain mayor was a Muslim, and some suggested the bombing, carried out by remote control, was part of a clan feud.

But military officials pointed out that the mayor, Saudi Ampatuan, had recently disarmed some MILF members.

They also said he had upset the rebels by planning to build a new road in the area which the MILF feared would be used by armed forces in operations against it.

Christmas in Indonesia went off without any reported problems, with Christians holding services under security force guard.

Several Western governments earlier warned their citizens to avoid travel to the country or - if already there - to avoid gatherings like church services.

Two years ago, a spate of Christmas Eve bombings on Indonesian churches left 19 people dead.

The recent discovery of bomb-making material and plans of churches in Sulawesi province prompted fears that Muslim terrorists were planning fresh strikes around Christmas this year.

A report in the Sulawesi paper, Komentar, said terrorists in the town of Bitung had threatened a "bloody Christmas," with attacks planned against churches, a key petroleum depot, and power facilities.

Some 190 people, most of them foreign tourists, were killed in a bomb attack on Indonesia's popular resort island of Bali last October.

Elsewhere in the region, Christian minorities in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and other countries marked a peaceful Christmas.



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