[2][3][4] On 13 July 2002 the second attack occurred on the trans-Sulawesi highway when the bus driver found a bag lying on the road and asked his conductor to retrieve it, triggering the device: an 18-year-old bystander was killed and at least 4 others severely wounded in the blast.
[2] On the afternoon of 12 July 2002 a bus heading from Palu to Tentena along the trans-Sulawesi highway stopped to investigate a suspicious bag lying on the road in the hills nearby Kawua and Ranononue.
[9][10] The bomb blasts are linked to sectarian conflict between Muslims and Christians in Central Sulawesi that killed at least 577 people and displaced another 86,000 during three-year period before a government-sponsored truce agreed in December 2001.
[11] The Indonesian authorities' failure to capture the assailants or uncover their identities and whereabouts sparked speculation that sections of the security forces could have been complicit in the Central Sulawesi attacks.
[12] In response to the attacks, the Indonesian Military called for the imposition of a state of civil emergency or martial law in the restive Poso regency.