Steve Quayle News Alerts

October 14, 2002
From Tim Johnston in Bali and Daniel McGrory

AN INDONESIAN group with links to al-Qaeda has emerged as the most likely suspect for the bombings, and was actually named by the Australian Government as the possible culprit.

Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) has been suspected recently by several countries, including Malaysia, Singapore and Australia, of planning a big terrorist attack.

Alexander Downer, the Australian Foreign Minister, said less than a week ago in Malaysia: “The organisation that we are most concerned about is a group called Jemaah Islamiyah.”

Mr Downer said yesterday that it was conceivable that Jemaah Islamiyah could have carried out the attacks in Bali. No group has yet claimed responsibility.

Singapore, which has accused Jemaah Islamiyah of plotting attacks on its soil, says that the group aims to create an Islamic state covering Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, the southern Philippines island of Mindanao and Brunei.

For months Western intelligence chiefs and diplomats from many countries have been giving warning that Indonesia is the weakest link in the War on Terror.

In the past few days American diplomats and their families have been evacuated from the capital, Jakarta, and windows of the US Embassy were covered with bulletproof steel amid fears of an attack.

A grenade exploded near the home of an American diplomat in Jakarta, and the CIA issued warnings that much worse was to come in a region plagued by Islamic fundamentalists.

Repeated pleas from Indonesia’s neighbours for President Megawati Sukarnoputri to crack down on known Islamic militants have been ignored because she feared stirring up Muslim anger on the streets. CIA officials even showed the Indonesians the confessions of detained terrorist suspects about a plot to kill her, but still nothing was done.

Militant Islamic groups proliferated in this region long before the events of September 11, but prominent voices in South-East Asia are concerned that America’s heavy-handed conduct of its War on Terror is driving otherwise moderate Muslims into the arms of radicals.

Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, who has in the past been praised by Washington for his assistance in its drive against terrorism, is becoming increasingly critical of the US. “They have made no effort to win the hearts and minds of Muslims, but have done everything to alienate and frustrate them,” he said recently.

Alienated young Muslims would provide a reservoir of potential recruits for terrorist networks, he said. Lee Kwan Yew, founding father of modern Singapore, echoed these sentiments last week.

Leading clerics and scholars watching the drift of university students to extremist groups say that America’s War on Terror is creating the monster that it set out to destroy.

Abu Bakar Bashir, who is thought to have links to Jemaah Islamiyah and is chairman of the Indonesian Mujahidin Council, called a press conference yesterday to deny that he had had a role in the bombings.

“The explosion could not have been carried out by domestic people,” he said. “Considering the huge power of the explosives used, it must be the work of foreigners, most probably the United States.”

He added that the attack was to create the impression that Islamic terrorists were present in Indonesia. “I hope the Government will not fall into the US trap,” he said.

Mr Bashir announced two weeks ago that he was suing Time magazine for defamation after it carried an article linking him to terrorism.

The magazine said that it based its story on a CIA report on statements by Omar al-Faruq, a Kuwaiti who had lived in Indonesia and had allegedly admitted under interrogation in US custody to being al-Qaeda’s top representative in South-East Asia.

Mr al-Faruq, 31, revealed how bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri regarded as the operational brain behind al-Qaeda had visited the leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah two years ago to exchange ideas.

Ulil Abshar-Abdalla, leader of a moderate Indonesian Islamic group, said: “The impact of the American policy is very, very scary.” The demonisation of figures such as Mr Bashir, who was until recently an obscure cleric, has brought him many more supporters, he said.

“When you pick on Abu Bakar Bashir as a case in the war on terrorism and give him newspaper headlines, it has a lot of consequences,” he said. “One of them is to make him a hero, and the other is to make his cause stronger and more credible among Muslims.”

Only a few days ago Mr Bashir said: “I defend Islam. Now it is up to the Indonesian Government, police and people to also defend Islam or choose to defend America.”

Jakarta has been strongly criticised for refusing to pass tough legislation that has been stalled in parliament for months, which would make it easier for security forces to round up terrorist suspects.

The US State Department will face questions about why it held off from adding Jemaah Islamiyah to its list of terrorist organisations after Indonesia gave warning of the repercussions it could cause to the coalition Government.

Every country in the region has in the past year made arrests of terror suspects whom they link to al-Qaeda in some way.

President Bush sent a squad of US Special Forces to the Philippines to help its army to deal with the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group. More than a hundred police and soldiers have been killed in gun battles with the group, blamed for a nail bomb attack in Zamboanga this month in which an American soldier was killed.

Abu Sayyaf, founded to fight for a Muslim homeland in the southern Philippines, has extorted millions kidnapping Western tourists.

There is no question that alQaeda has been active in the region. It was in Manila that al-Qaeda met in January 2000 to co-ordinate plans for the attacks on the United States. Two of the September 11 hijackers were present, as were some of bin Laden’s lieutenants. Intelligence chiefs had been told that the meeting was being held in a city centre condominium but nothing was done.

There was anxiety across the region as the first anniversary of September 11 approached and alerts were given about possible strikes against gas pipelines, airports, bridges and US embassies.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-446016,00.html