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| Southeast Asia |
| Indonesian terrorists find refuge |
| 2009-07-30 |
| Militants evaded crackdown that hurt group by seeking havens, recruits among sympathetic Islamists I left out the introduction. You know the story. In 2006, according to police documents, an emissary of Mr. Noordin known as Syaifuddin Zuhri, but who used the alias Sabit, arrived at a small Islamic school called al Furqon, about four hours' drive south of Palembang. His mission: To exhort a nonviolent study group of about 10 people concerned about Christian conversions of local Muslims to consider attacks on Western targets. Mr. Sabit, who had fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s, knew the founder of the religious school, a Jemaah Islamiyah member and Afghan veteran called Ani Sugandi, and had helped him recruit hard-line teachers, according to police testimony viewed by The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Sugandi later told police he had refused requests to join in the violence, but sheltered Mr. Sabit and allowed him to give a sermon to the group. In the sermon, Mr. Sabit claimed he had direct links to Osama bin Laden and urged the members to launch a jihad against America and its allies, according to the testimony of Abdurrahman Taib, a leading member of the study group. The following year, Mr. Sabit told Mr. Taib that he had been sent by Mr. Noordin, the police files show. Mr. Sabit introduced Mr. Taib to a master bomb maker, who later trained others in the group, and supplied him with a loaded revolver and 11 spare bullets to be used in attacks on "infidels," Mr. Taib said in trial testimony. Members of the group went on, in 2007, to shoot dead a Christian schoolteacher in Palembang who had persuaded his Muslim female students not to wear their veils. The members also built bombs and planned to attack tourist cafes in a Sumatran hill resort popular with backpackers, according to testimony. The group called off the attacks at the last minute because they didn't want to also kill Indonesian Muslims. When the group was broken up last year, after police followed leads from arrested Jemaah Islamiyah members, Those arrested included Mr. Sugandi, the head of the religious school -- which is now shuttered -- and a 35-year-old Singaporean known as Fajar Taslim, who had helped radicalize the group and was wanted in Singapore for a foiled attempt to attack Western targets there in 2001. Six suspects picked up had no previous known connection to Jemaah Islamiyah or any other violent group, suggesting Mr. Noordin's network was able to successfully radicalize people. Eight members of the group confessed and were convicted of the teacher's murder and of planning attacks, and received prison sentences of between 10 and 18 years. Mr. Sugandi was given a five-year sentence for harboring terrorists, and his school shut down. Mr. Sabit wasn't captured. In Indonesia, a secular nation of 240 million people with thousands of moderate Islamist academies, there are about 50 radical Islamic schools opened by alleged members of Jemaah Islamiyah. Sidney Jones, an expert on Southeast Asian terrorist networks at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, a peace-advocacy body, says the school heads -- who want to see the establishment of an Islamic state and are highly distrustful of Indonesia's secular government and police -- often allow known terrorists to stay with them as long as they promise not to engage in acts of violence while there. "You can be at any one of these schools and link in to Noordin" or his associates, says Ms. Jones, who first outlined the story of the Palembang group in a report last May. Heri Purwanto, a 25-year-old who was in the Palembang study group and made a living hawking prepaid cards for mobile phones, was guarding the group's bombs in a derelict house in the city when police arrested him. His mother, Purwati, who lives in a run-down wooden house at the end of a narrow maze of alleys in a poor part of the city, contends her son was never a radical Muslim and is at a loss to explain his involvement. Ms. Purwati says she complained to guards at her son's Jakarta prison that he was sharing a cell with Mr. Taslim, the Singaporean, and could become further radicalized. Some members of the study group, who police have been unable to prove were involved in the attacks, have remained free. A lawyer for one of them, Oloan Martua Harahap, who owned an Internet cafe used by the group for meetings but claims not to be have known of the plans for the shooting or planned bombings, says those arrested had became more radical through contact with Mr. Sabit and others. "They were saying jihad must be conducted now and the enemy is Capitalism," says Bahrul Ilmi Yakup, the lawyer. Mr. Sabit was arrested in June in Cilacap, a town in Central Java where police now say they believe the Jakarta attacks were planned. Just a few days before the bombings, police raided an Islamic school in Cilacap run by a man who is the father-in-law of Mr. Noordin and a relative of Mr. Sabit, uncovering bomb making material. The material was similar to an unexploded bomb found later at the JW Marriott. Authorities have since detained a woman believed to be Mr. Noordin's wife. Her father, who ran the school, and Mr. Noordin remain on the run. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #1 Six suspects picked up had no previous known connection to Jemaah Islamiyah or any other violent group, suggesting Mr. Noordin's network was able to successfully radicalize people. I wouldn't necessarily say they were radicalized. My feeling is that they were already radical. What they needed was a planner or a project manager - someone who could break a mission down into tasks that could be accomplished step by step. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2009-07-30 15:50 |