An Islamic militant group has asked Indonesia to release Abu Bakar Bashir, the cleric accused of leading Jemaah Islamiah, in exchange for two Indonesian hostages kidnapped in Iraq.
In a video broadcast by Al-Jazeera television today, the Islamic Army in Iraq said "the Indonesian Government arrested Abu Bakar Bashir to please the Australian Government".
The cleric last month told the Indonesian Rakyat Merdeka newspaper in an interview that a suicide bomb attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta on September 9 had been part of a US and Australian conspiracy to divide Muslims. Bashir, who is in detention ahead of a trial that will also focus on his alleged leadership of Jemaah Islamiah, condemned the Australian embassy bombing and said the attacks could not be justified. The elderly cleric frequently launches tirades against the United States and Australia, blaming his own incarceration on a US-orchestrated plot. The two Indonesian women, identified by the Indonesian foreign ministry as Rosidah binti Anom and Rafikan binti Amin, were kidnapped by the Islamic Army in Iraq, which said in a previous video also aired by the television company that it had abducted 10 foreigners working for British electronics company G-Bell. |