Jakarta, Indonesia - Police have urged churches in and around the Indonesian city of Solo to dig holes for disposing of suspicious objects that might be bombs, an officer said on Friday amid fears of Christmas-related attacks.
Police across the world's most populous Muslim country have been stepping up security measures ahead of the year-end holidays to avoid a repeat of 2000 Christmas Eve bombings of churches in several Indonesian cities which killed 19 people.
"I urged churches, especially those in villages, to dig holes to throw away suspicious objects that might be bombs," Solo police chief Abdul Madjid told Reuters.
For inner city churches with nowhere to dig, "I order them to make bomb baskets," he said, referring to large metal drums the police bomb squad uses for defusing explosives.
"This is an anticipatory act. Who knows; there might be a pack of bombs," Madjid told Reuters by telephone from the central Java city 500 km (300 miles) east of Jakarta.
Officers had been assigned to guard more than 60 churches in the city and priests should tell congregations to bring only essential items to Christmas events, such as Bibles and hymnbooks, and not carry backpacks, he said.
The church bombings in 2000 and other blasts in recent years -- most recently on the tourist island of Bali in October when suicide bombers with backpacks killed 20 people -- have been blamed on Jemaah Islamiah, a militant network linked to al Qaeda.
Volunteers from Indonesia's largest Islamic group have said they would help police guard churches across the vast country during the holiday season.
Around 48,000 policemen are expected to secure Christmas celebrations across the world's fourth most populous country, with one third of them deployed in Jakarta alone.
Around 85 percent of Indonesia's 220 million people are Muslim. Christians form the second largest religious group in the country and in Jakarta.
Although Indonesia has been relatively calm in recent weeks, security analysts say the threats of militant attacks is still high because police have yet to catch one of the alleged masterminds of previous bombings, Malaysian-born Noordin M. Top.
Police last month killed Azahari Husin, another alleged Jemaah Islamiah leader, in a shootout in East Java province.