Indonesia ? Indonesian troops were on high alert Monday, bracing for a new cycle of sectarian violence in a province where machete-wielding assailants beheaded three Christian schoolgirls and seriously wounded a fourth.

Religious leaders called on their followers to remain calm and to refrain from revenge attacks, reminding them that investigators have yet to determine who was behind Saturday’s grisly murders in Central Sulawesi province.

Suspicion has fallen, however, on Islamic militants responsible for a series of attacks on Christians since a peace deal in 2002 ended a bloody conflict that killed as many as 1,000 people from both communities.

National police spokesman Maj. Gen. Aryanto Budihardjo said there were no key suspects in the killings, and that only six people have been questioned so far.

He blamed the attacks on “terrorists” seeking to destabilize the province “just as relations between Muslim and Christian communities were improving.”

Preparing for the worst, the government deployed more than 1,500 soldiers and police armed with assault rifles Monday across Central Sulawesi.