Jakarta - Indonesian police shot dead eight men in Indonesia's western province of Aceh yesterday while mobs torched a Catholic church in the Moluccas at the other end of the vast archipelago, residents and police said.
Aceh residents said police wrongly identified the eight men as members of the Free Aceh Movement and shot them dead outside their homes in a village near the city of Lhokseumawe. Police said the men were criminals.
Meanwhile nine people were killed and at least 60 injured as clashes raged for a third straight day between Muslims and Christian in the eastern city of Ambon. On Wednesday at least 23 people were killed there.