Posted on 08/10/2003 4:25:27 PM PDT by blam
Jailed Muslim cleric issues defiant message
By Alex Spillius, South-East Asia Correspondent
(Filed: 11/08/2003)
More than 3,000 Islamic militants attended a rally in Indonesia yesterday to support the jailed cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual leader of the group blamed for last week's attack on a Jakarta hotel and the Bali bombings last year.
In a message from his prison cell, where he is awaiting the resumption of his trial for attacks on churches and treason, 64-year-old Bashir said Muslims should strive to impose Islamic law without fear of being labelled terrorists.
"Do not be afraid of being labelled as trying to overthrow [the government] or as terrorists when you are carrying out Islamic Sharia [law]," he said in the message, read by a deputy.
The crowd, many carrying staves and wearing paramilitary uniform, in the east Javan city of Solo, where Bashir has his power base and runs a religious school, shouted "God is great" in response.
The rally was staged by Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI), or the Indonesian Jihad Fighters' Council, which campaigns for an Islamic state.
Radical Muslim literature and videos showing alleged mistreatment of Muslims in Chechnya and the Middle East were on sale.
"Bashir is a true fighter, but he is not a terrorist. Bush is a terrorist," said Umar Wayan, an MMI member.
The big turnout underlined the determination of the militant minority in the world's most populous Muslim nation.
The moderate mainstream might have hardened against extremism in reaction to the Bali atrocity, which claimed 202 lives, but so, it appears, has the zeal of the militant hardcore against the police crackdown that has followed.
Bashir's school is thought to have provided dozens of recruits for Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), which he founded in the mid-Seventies and then developed in the Eighties into a militant organisation linked to Osama bin Laden.
Indonesian police believe that the main suspect in last Tuesday's car bomb attack on the Marriott hotel in Jakarta is a graduate of Bashir's Ngruki boarding school.
One of the key Bali suspects, Mukhlas, was also a student there. Last Thursday, an Indonesian court sentenced to death Amrozi, a younger brother of Mukhlas, for his role in the Bali bombings.
Several MMI activists have been linked with JI and blamed for plotting or carrying out attacks in south-east Asia. Members have been arrested in Malaysia and the Philippines and accused of terrorist activities.
Bashir, an avowed admirer of bin Laden, is accused of masterminding a series of Indonesian church bombings in 2000 and of an alleged plot to assassinate President Megawati Sukarnoputri.
He has repeatedly denied involvement in terrorist acts and has claimed that Jemaah Islamiyah, which means "Islamic community", does not exist.
Intelligence agencies in the region are certain of his role. After the Bali investigations and the latest atrocity in the capital, Indonesian police are losing their reticence about linking Bashir, JI and al-Qa'eda.
Sidney Jones, of the International Crisis Group in Jakarta, which has studied JI in depth, said the group is still operating training camps and recruiting through the Islamic schools of central and east Java that have supplied its leaders and foot soldiers.
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