[Nasional-e] Al Qaida tries to get a grip on Indonesia

[munindo]

Datum: Sun, 13 Oct 2002 08:21:10 -0700 (PDT)
Von: s_delsod..@.....com>
An: munindo@brd.de
     
Al Qaida tries to get a grip on Indonesia 
Bahrain | Abdullah Al Madani 


I wrote earlier this year that all evidence indicates
that Al Qaida has been working for years to stretch
out into Southeast Asian countries with a primary
focus on Indonesia. 

The latter has a difficult geography (13,000 islands
scattered over an area of 2 million square
kilometres), densely populated islands, a loose
security situation due to the receding control of the
military in the post-Suharto era, deep ethnic and
sectarian problems and many armed separatist
movements. 

All these factors combined could provide an ideal
environment for Al Qaida to operate under ground in
order to cause the flare up of a civil war that may
ultimately lead to the creation of a pure Islamic
state. 

This is particularly relevant given the presence of
Indonesian groups that are willing to co-operate
toward achieving this aim such as Abubakar Ba'asyir's
Jamaah Islamiah and Jafar Talib's Askar Al Jihad. 

Accordingly, I wrote that the bell should be rung
before it is too late in order that Muslim Indonesia
would not follow Afghanistan's example and end up in
chaos and destruction after having achieved a
promising development. 

However, this view was strongly met by condemnation
from Indonesia's embassy in the UAE which hastened to
say that there were no extensions of Al Qaida in its
country. It even went on to ridicule the credentials
of the writer of this article and his analyses of
Indonesian affairs. 

Senior representative

However, Indonesia recently arrested a Kuwaiti
national called Omar Farouk and handed him over to the
Americans. 

The detainee admitted that he was actually a senior
representative of Al Qaida in Southeast Asia and that
he was sent to the region to plan wide-scale attacks
against Western interests in eight countries
(Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore,
Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam and Cambodia) and to
assassinate Megawati Sukarnoputri before becoming
President since she was a secular threat to Al Qaida's
future goals in Indonesia. 

This serves to prove that what I have written was not
merely speculative statements made in bad faith as
described by the Indonesian embassy. 

Omar Farouk's confessions included saying that he had
been behind a series of 24 attacks against churches
and recreational spots on Christmas night 2000. Such
attacks took place with logistical help from Abu Bakar
Ba'asyir. The latter, who now lives and teaches in
central Java, is wanted by Malaysia and Singapore. 

He was questioned and released by Indonesian police in
February due to the lack of sufficient evidence in
spite of his declared agenda of the need to wage Jihad
against all Southeast Asian regimes. What is
significant in Farouk's confessions is his
confirmation of previous speculation about Riduan
Isamuddin's links to Bin Laden's Al Qaida. 

Riduan Isamuddin (37 years), better known as Hambali,
is one of the most dangerous and wanted persons by the
U.S. and four Southeast Asian countries (Indonesia,
Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore) for being the
mastermind behind the major acts of Asian terrorism in
the past decade. 

He has been linked to bank robberies, raising funds
for buying and smuggling weapons, recruiting fighters
for Jihad, political murder, planning to plant bombs
in 12 U.S. airliners in 1995 and to detonate seven
huge car-bombs, and providing shelter and making
travel arrangements for at least two of the September
11 hijackers and one of the suspects in the bombing of
the US Cole at Aden. 

One may understand the extent of the threat posed by
Hambali to the Americans from the remark made by a
U.S. diplomat in which he said: "We worry about him
all the time. It's what keeps us awake at night". 

Probably because of this, the Time magazine chose
Hambali for its Asian edition's cover under the
heading "Southeast Asian's own Bin Laden." 

According to information compiled by several
intelligence, security and press sources, Hambali
belongs to a poor rural Indonesian family which has
always enjoyed certain respect since it provided some
traditional religious scholars who had not been known
for being extremist nor fanatics. 

According to the same sources, he was brought up as a
very devout Muslim who only worked to earn a living in
the family's farm, but who also learned the art of
overcoming harsh challenges with such qualities as
patience, silence and austerity. 

However, it is now said that he concealed under such
characteristics a strong ambition for change and
rebellion against the prevailing conditions in
Suharto's Indonesia through the use of religious
drive. 

According to a former classmate in his home town of
Sukanama, in Western Java, Hambali failed to carry out
what he was thinking of in spite of his obvious
talents of persuasion, planning and facing challenges
as a result of Suharto's powerful security fist. 

At that time, any gathering of more than three people
without a prior permission from the military used to
raise suspicions and leads those involved to prison. 

Perhaps that is why Hambali felt a lot of humiliation
and repression that made him decide to travel to
Malaysia on the plea of continuing his education and
improving his living conditions, relying according to
his mother upon God's help. Apparently Malaysia was
not strict in chasing the Islamic activists and was a
place full of job and educational opportunities. 

Turning point

It can be said that his travel to Malaysia in 1985 at
the age of 20 was a  turning point in his life,
because destiny allowed him there to meet with someone
who convinced him to travel to Afghanistan for Jihad
against the Russians. 

He spent several years in that country getting
military training, let alone acquiring extremist
ideas. In this context, some of his acquaintances said
that when he returned to Malaysia, following his jihad
trip, his personality and ideas were considerably
changed. 

He used to shower praise on the Afghan model and Bin
Laden. He also promoted the ideas advocating change in
the Islamic world by armed fight against existing
regimes  according to the principle "either victory or
death which is also a victory because it means going
to heavens."  

The testimony provided by the Malaysian Mohammed bin
Hamidun in whose property Hambali stayed for some time
is significant here. When Hambali returned to Malaysia
in 1991, he had little more than a plastic bag of
clothes. 

So Hamidun allowed him and his wife Noralwizah Lee, a
Chinese Malaysian, to live in one of his shacks for a
modest rent. One of Hamidun's conditions was that the
leased shack should not be used for receiving
strangers or storing arms and illegal items. 

It seems that the tenant's commitment to be isolated
from others made Hamidun ever more worried that
Hambali could be planning something behind his always
closed doors. 

However, such fears soon died down when the latter
began to make a living by selling Arabic and
Indonesian herbs and later by selling kebabs from a
pushcart outside the main mosque in Banting town. 

What happened after some time raised doubts in Hamidun
once again. Since 1994 a remarkable change was noticed
in Hambali's life and activities. In other words, the
quiet man who kept to himself began to receive
frequent Middle Eastern visitors who arrived at night
and departed the next morning. 

Gradually his financial conditions began to show signs
of improvement.  From a rough and austere existence
and a modest job, he began to do contracting jobs,
drive a new car, carry several mobile phones and hold
banquets on the occasion of Eid. Then, the new Hambali
co-founded a company called Konsojaya, ostensibly to
export palm oil from Malaysia to Afghanistan. 

South East Asian intelligence sources now say that
this company was only a cover up for terrorist
activities as proved by the discovery of telephone
calls made from that company to a number of suspects
in the Philippines and Pakistan who had links to Al
Qaida. 

Another proof was the fact that  Hambali's partner in
the company was Wali Khan Amin Shah, a Pakistani later
jailed in the U.S. for the bombing of a Philippine
Airlines plane in 1994 that killed a Japanese
businessman. 

Wali Khan escaped from custody in Manila in 1995 and
fled to the Malaysian resort of Langkawi, using the
name "Osama Turkestani". 

Arrested

He was arrested in December 1995 and handed over to
the U.S. after an alert  Malaysian officer noticed his
chief distinguishing mark: three missing fingers on
his left hand.  

Since the arrest of Wali Khan, Hambali disappeared and
there was no sign of him. There were rumours about his
return to Indonesia to hide there or that he escaped
to the southern Philippines. 

However, an Indonesian detainee held by the Malaysian
authorities called Achmed Sajuli admitted that in
January 2001 he took part in forging a passport and a
visa for Hambali to enable the latter to flee to
Pakistan. 

That was what prompted Jakarta recently to dispatch an
investigation team to Islamabad to look for him in
spite of lack of evidence. 

Abdullah Al Madani is a Gulf researcher and expert in
Asian affairs.