Indonesia Arrests Cleric As He Prays For Osama's Safety

Indonesian police finally moved yesterday against a militant Muslim cleric linked with al-Qa'ida, arresting Abu Bakar Bashir as he lay in a hospital bed in central Java.

Mr Bashir, accused of being the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, a radical Islamic group – which he denies even exists – was under armed guard as police waited to question him about a spate of church bombings in December 2000. He runs a religious boarding school near the Javanese city of Solo, and collapsed on Friday after delivering a fiery sermon in which he prayed for the safety of Osama bin Laden.

While there is no evidence to connect him with the bomb that killed more than 180 people in Bali last weekend, the US and Australia regard Jemaah Islamiyah as the most likely culprit. The groupis suspected of planning attacks throughout south-east Asia. Indonesia had long resisted international pressure to arrest Mr Bashir, fearing a backlash from extremists.

In the Philippines, police said they had captured a leader of the Muslim extremist group Abu Sayyaf, who was allegedly involved in the kidnapping of Western tourists two years ago. Mark Bolkerin Gumbahale was arrested while playing video games in an internet cafe in Manila. Abu Sayyaf is accused of involvement in bomb attacks in the Philippines last week which left nine people dead.

'Have I ever killed anyone? It's never been proved'

By Raymond Whitaker
20 October 2002

Abu Bakar Bashir is a recognisable type in the world of Islamist extremism – the frail, fiery cleric whose rhetoric inspires young zealots to bloody acts of martyrdom, yet who denies any connection with terrorism. Mr Bashir, indeed, is suing Time magazine for accusing him of just that.

Like the wheelchair-bound, whispering Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of the radical Palestinian group Hamas, who is close in age to his 64-year-old Indonesian counterpart, Mr Bashir lives simply and looks unimpressive – he has buck teeth, a wispy beard and large tinted spectacles – but is regarded with awe by his followers. He admits he has met Osama bin Laden, but also denies he is a terrorist.

"I reject being called a terrorist," Mr Bashir said on Friday, after a sermon in which he prayed for the safety of Mr bin Laden and before he was admitted to hospital with respiratory problems. "Have I killed any civilian, anyone? That has never been proven – because it never happened."

Like some of Pakistan's prominent firebrands, Mr Bashir runs a madrasah, or Muslim boarding school for boys. His is in Ngruki, a poor village 250 miles east of Java, where more than 1,500 pupils, some of whom start at the age of two, are summoned to prayer five times a day. Little is known of his personal life, but he has flirted with Islamist militancy for decades.

Born into a poor family, Mr Bashir began studying law before dropping out to preach. He is accused of being a founder of Jemaah Islamiyah, which wants a pan-Islamic state across south-east Asia, but he denies the group even exists.

Intelligence experts say the organisation is rooted in the school founded by Mr Bashir and his mentor, the late Abdullah Sunkar – an even greater firebrand – in the early years of General Suharto's dictatorship.

Mr Bashir was detained in 1978 and sentenced to three years in prison in 1982 for subversive activities – demanding the imposition of Islamic sharia law in Indonesia. He and Mr Sunkar went into exile in Malaysia in 1985 and were joined by Riduan Isamuddin, also known as Hambali, who fought in Afghanistan and is identified as a leading member of both al-Qa'ida and Jemaah Islamiyah.

Mr Hambali organised a meeting of two of the 11 September hijackers in Malaysia in January 2000, as well as a plot to bomb the US embassy in Singapore that was broken up with the arrests of nearly 100 militants.

Mr Bashir returned to Indonesia in 1999 after General Suharto was overthrown, and became, with Mr Sunkar's death, the spiritual inspiration for Islamist opposition to the new President, Megawati Sukarnoputri

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