14 Christians killed in Indonesia

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Black-masked assailants armed with guns, grenades and daggers stormed a village in Indonesia's religiously divided Maluku province Sunday, killing 14 Christians in a brutal pre-dawn attack that threatened a fragile peace pact.

Shouting "kill them all," a dozen men entered the mostly Christian village of Soya on the outskirts of Ambon, the provincial capital and the focus of three years of sectarian violence that killed 9,000 people, witnesses said.

The attackers went from house to house, shooting residents and setting fire to 30 homes and a Protestant church, witnesses said. They said six people were stabbed to death, including a 6-month-old child, six died in fires and two were believed to have been shot.

"The scene is horrible," one witness said. "I saw six bodies burned so badly you couldn't recognize them."

The attack came two days after a militant Islamic group, Laskar Jihad, rejected a February peace deal meant to end the fighting between Muslims and Christians in Maluku, a region known as the Spice Islands during Dutch colonial rule.

"It may be the end of the peace deal," said Cornelius Bohm, a Christian pastor in Ambon who said he had "no doubt" that Laskar Jihad was behind the attack. The group could not be reached for comment Sunday.

A senior police officer in Ambon, speaking on condition of anonymity, said 14 people were killed and 11 injured, while national Police Chief Gen. Da'i Bactiar put the death toll at eight. Both officers refused to speculate on the religion of the killers.

Survivors said they initially thought the camouflage-clad intruders were soldiers carrying out a security sweep but that the assailants then started tossing grenades and shooting at anyone who moved.

Those who were interviewed described the attackers as "terrorists" and said they were unsure if they were Muslim.