Bomb blasts rocked two Jakarta churches during morning services yesterday, wounding 64 people on the eve of a showdown between the top assembly and President Abdurrahman Wahid.
Condemning the attacks as "brutal and inhuman," Wahid ordered the army chief to act after early investigations showed the explosives used came from the army.
"I am very concerned that this happened during a very critical situation facing the nation," he told reporters after visiting victims at a central Jakarta hospital.
The police blamed provocateurs.
"These [attacks] were done by people who want to cause chaos and create insecurity in Jakarta during the special session," police spokesman Anton Bahrul Alam said, referring to an impeachment hearing by the top assembly set to resume today.
A defiant Wahid has said he will ignore a summons by the supreme People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) to appear today to answer allegations of corruption and incompetence.
Legislators have warned they will immediately sack the country's first democratically elected leader if he fails to turn up by noon.
"The political era of the Wahid government has only a few hours left," said MPR chief Amien Rais, the kingmaker who engineered Wahid's surprise election win in 1999.
Wahid is threatening to declare a state of emergency that would allow him to dissolve the MPR and call a snap election for the nation. He has also warned that his angry supporters could take to the streets.
Analysts say Wahid is almost certain to be impeached and replaced by his estranged Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri. He is virtually isolated politically and lacks sufficient support from the military and police to declare an emergency, they say.
The MPR, which began its hearing on Saturday, did not meet yesterday, but political leaders met Megawati in a show of support.
"We all have agreed to give moral support to Megawati to set up a stable, effective and productive government," Rais told reporters after the meeting.
More than 40,000 extra police and soldiers have been deployed amid fears the crisis could erupt into bloodshed. Hundreds of armed personnel are guarding the parliamentary complex where the assembly will meet today behind razor wire barricades and protected by armored personnel carriers.
Despite his threat to declare an emergency, analysts say it is doubtful Wahid has enough support to do so.
Key generals have publicly opposed such a move and their representatives in the MPR voted in support of the impeachment hearings and Wahid's summons.
And despite Wahid's warning about his angry supporters, there was no sign in Jakarta of the thousands who have flooded into the capital in the past to show their backing for him.
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