Indonesia is deploying thousands more security forces to Central Sulawesi province, after deadly attacks on Christian villagers sparked fears of renewed religious violence in the region, officials said on Monday.

At least 10 Christians have been killed in attacks by unidentified gunmen, clad in black fatigues and masks, on four villages in Central Sulawesi in the past week, police said.

The attacks, near the town of Poso some 1,000 miles northeast of Jakarta on Friday and Saturday, also resulted in the torching of a church and dozens of houses.

Muslim-Christian violence in the region has caused about 2,000 deaths in clashes since 1999. About 85 percent of Indonesia's 210 million people are Muslim. The rest are mostly Christian, Hindu and animist.

The latest killings -- which some local officials have said number as high as 15 and appeared well coordinated -- follow months of relative calm in Sulawesi.

They have raised concern of the possible involvement by groups linked to Jemaah Islamiah, a regional Muslim militant network blamed for last year's deadly Bali bombings.

The area around Poso was wracked by violence in 2001 and 2002 and became a training ground for many Muslim militants.

"The total death toll (from Saturday) is eight, and nine injured," Rudy Tranggono, deputy Poso police chief, told Reuters Monday.

"The situation around Poso now is back to normal, there are no riots," he said. Police reported two Christian villagers were killed Friday in a raid that destroyed a church and about 30 homes.

Separately, Sugianto Kaimudin, an official at Poso District Hospital said: "Up to today, the total number of victims received by Poso Hospital from the Saturday incident is 14 injured, and eight people dead."

Officials said they were all Christians. Several had been shot, while others were hacked to death with machetes. Chief Social Welfare Minister Yusuf Kalla told reporters that as many as 8,000 reinforcements had been sent to the areas of the attacks.

"We have sent additional personnel since yesterday. Police mobile brigades from South and North (Sulawesi) and from Jakarta, as well as military, between 4,000 and 8,000 additional troops in all," he said.

"Clearly it is an act of murdering innocent civilians," he said, but declined to classify the attacks as a resurgence of Muslim-Christian violence.

National police spokesman Basyir Barmawi told Reuters he could not confirm the exact number of reinforcements moved to the area, but said authorities had sent additional security forces from Jakarta, which arrived early on Monday.

Those troops included 200 elite police riot officers, one bomb squad and two helicopters.

But police told Reuters earlier they were concerned that the attacks might indicate rising religious tensions in the region, although none of the perpetrators had yet been detained and their motives were not known.

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