Update on Southeast Asian Militants Heading to Lebanon
By Zachary Abuza
On 20 July, I posted on Suab Didu, the head of the radical Islamic Youth Movement of Indonesia, who announced the formation of a new regional organization, the "Palestine Jihad Bombing Troops" that was dispatching some 217 Southeast Asians to "help our brothers in Palestine and Lebanon." http://counterterrorismblog.org/2006/07/southeast_asians_en_route_to_m.php Yesterday Suaib Didu, commented in the press, "It's all true. Militants from Malaysia and Thailand departed yesterday. Indonesians will leave soon."
A quasi-official from the Philippine Moro Islamic Liberation Front denied that any members of the MILF were among the 57 Filipinos that Didu claimed were being sent to the region.
In other news, another militant organization, the Islamic Defender's Front (FPI) ’s spokesman, Yusuf al Qardawi, announced that 90 members of his group were leaving for Lebanon and “are ready to die as martyrs.” The FPI threatened to recruit large numbers of jihadis to fight the Americans in Iraq in 2003, though few actually went. The FPI's leader, Habib Rizieq, was quickly detained by US forces and sent back to Indonesia, though the government did nothing to punish him.
The veracity of these claims is uncertain.