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INDONESIAN cleric Abu Bakar Bashir told a court Thursday that Muslims have a religious duty to take up arms against non-believers, as he offered his first defence against terrorism charges. The cleric who is regarded as a spiritual leader of Islamist militants around the region is accused of leading an Al-Qaeda-style militant group that was discovered training recruits in Aceh province last year. Police jostled with about 200 of the frail 72-year-old's radical supporters as he arrived under tight guard amid shouts of "Allahu akbar" ... The cleric is an alleged co-founder of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terror organisation blamed...

SNIPPET: "The police arrested two terrorist suspects at the house: Fahri Tanjung, also known as Hilmi, and Hamzah. The police also found chemicals they believed were to be used to make explosives and an activated hand-made high-explosive bomb inside the house. West Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Sutarman said the police detonated the high-explosive bomb on location after failing to defuse it. Books and VCDs on jihad, as well as an air rifle were seized as evidence. One of the VCDs was titled Afghanistan jihad: The journey of the oppressed. Sutarman said the suspects had been involved in acts of...

Bali bombing cleric attacks western tourists By Nick Squires in Sydney Last Updated: 1:56am GMT 25/03/2008 Western tourists in Indonesia are "maggots, snakes and worms" who should be beaten up, the alleged mastermind of the 2002 Bali bombings has told hardline Islamic followers. Abu Bakar Bashir, the cleric who was convicted of conspiracy over the Bali bombings but later cleared and released from prison after 26 months, said the island resort had been overrun by scantily-clad tourists who deserved to be attacked for their immorality. "Worms, snakes, maggots... those are animals that crawl. Take a look at Bali... those infidel...

Israel's air force fired around 20 missiles at targets in Gaza City on Saturday, causing heavy damage, a Reuters witness said. The IDF has confirmed the report. (Hanan Greenberg and Reuters)

BOYOLALI (Indonesia) - For the skullcapped students of the Darusy Syahadah Islamic school, there is no question that the three radical jihadis behind the 2002 bombings on Indonesia's Bali island are heroes. Sheltering from the equatorial sun on the steps of the school's mosque, the students crowd to offer their approval of bombers Amrozi, Mukhlas and Imam Samudra. Authorities said this week the three bombers will face the firing squad by early November for their role in the attack, which killed 202 people. 'They're holy warriors, that's how I respond, they're holy warriors,' said Sir Muhammad Royhan Syihabuddin Ar-Rohmi, a...

AN Indonesian Islamic cleric linked to the three extremists awaiting execution for the Bali bombings said today the 2002 attack which killed more than 200 people was the work of the CIA. Abu Bakar Bashir told AFP the US intelligence agency had fired a nuclear missile at the Bali tourist strip from a ship off the coast. "It has been mentioned as being a micro-nuclear bomb, not a regular bomb... The bomb was made by the CIA, it could be no one else," he said in his house at the Al-Mukmin Islamic boarding school on Indonesia's Java island. He said...

ISLAMIC cleric Abu Bakar Bashir has returned to his hardline rhetoric with a call for followers to beat up Western tourists and for young Muslims to die as martyrs. In the sermon, organised by an Islamic youth organisation and delivered a few kilometres from the home village of convicted Bali bombers Amrozi and Mukhlas, Bashir likened tourists in Bali to "worms, snakes, maggots", and specifically referred to the immorality of Australian infidels. The address was caught on video by an Australian university student. "The youth movement here must aspire to a martyrdom death," said the cleric, who was convicted of...

JAKARTA (AP): An alleged Southeast Asian terror leader threatened to call for holy war against Indonesian police Thursday, days after an anti-terror squad shot dead 15 suspected Islamic extremists. Abu Bakar Bashir, accused by Australia and the United States of being a key figure in the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah, said Muslims should stop serving in the police's anti-terror squad on Indonesia's conflict-ridden Sulawesi island. "If Muslims are being killed, then we must fight back," the 69-year-old cleric told around 100 hard-liners outside the National Human Rights Commission in the capital, Jakarta, where they were protesting Monday's killings. "If necessary, we...

Indonesia's Supreme Court has overturned militant cleric Abu Bakar Bashir's conviction on conspiracy charges in the 2002 Bali bombings. The verdict clears his name since he has already served his two-and-a-half year sentence. "The court today decided to uphold Bashir's judicial review," chief judge German Hoediarto said on Thursday.

The Indonesian Islamist cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who was released from prison in July 2006 after having been charged with complicity in the Bali terror attacks of 2002, gave an interview to Al-Jazeera in which he outlined his plans for establishing an Islamic state in Indonesia. Bashir attacked democracy and the West, and called on Muslims to wage jihad against the ruling regimes in the Muslim world. The interview appeared on August 21, 2006, on Al-Jazeera's English-language website. The following are excerpts from the article:(1) "We Demand an Islamic State" "We demand an Islamic state, and not some form of...

JAKARTA, July 30 (UPI) -- The leader of the Indonesian Mujahedeen Council says he wants to convert Indonesia into an "Allahcracy," it was reported Sunday. Abu Bakar Bashir, 68, free after serving two years in jail for his role in a bombing of two nightclubs in Bali in 2002 that killed 202 people, tells the Sunday Times of London that Islamist bombings "are reactions by Muslims to defend themselves." "The democratic system is not the Islamic way," he says. "It is forbidden. Democracy is based on people, but the state must be based on God's law. I call it Allahcracy."...

Militan cleric Abu Bakar Bashir gestures during a press conference at his residence in Solo, Central Java, Indonesia, Thursday, June 15, 2006. The Freed cleric on Thursday described the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings as "God's will" and encouraged non-Muslim survivors of the attacks to convert to Islam. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)","DITA ALANGKARA", "AP"); June 15, 2006, 10:08AMCleric Calls on Bush to Convert to Islam By IRWAN FIRDAUS Associated Press Writer © 2006 The Associated Press SOLO, Indonesia — A reputed leader of an al-Qaida-linked terror group blamed for deadly bombings across Indonesia on Thursday accused President Bush and Australia's prime...

Militant Islamic Cleric Released from Indonesian Prison Tuesday , June 13, 2006 JAKARTA, Indonesia — A hardline cleric alleged to be a top leader in the Al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah terror group was released from prison Wednesday to cries of "God is great" from scores of cheering supporters. Abu Bakar Bashir, 68, had served 26 months for conspiracy in the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people and thrust Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, onto the front lines of the war on terror. "I thank Allah that I am free today," a smiling and waving Bashir said after...

Indonesia will investigate a hardline Muslim boarding school founded by radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir as part of a crackdown on Islamic militancy following recent triple suicide bombings in Bali. Police in Bali also said they would charge an extremist accused of being the right-hand man for fugitive terrorist Noordin Top with involvement in the October 1 attacks, meaning he will face a possible death penalty. Indonesia's Religious Affairs Department said it would investigate the teachings of the Al Mukmin boarding school founded by Bashir near the town in Ngruki. The school counts several of the original Bali bombers among...

Terror: As Indonesians clean up after another terror strike, there's plenty of hand-wringing about why it doesn't stop. For terrorists, though, there's little mystery: Indonesia's courts are making terrorism cheap. Saturday's bombings at three crowded tourist restaurants on Bali were the fourth major strike against Indonesia in as many years. With 22 dead and 101 injured, there's no doubt this was an effort to drive out visitors. Tourism amounts to a quarter of Indonesia's hard-currency earnings. Scaring tourists away is an act of economic warfare. But Indonesia's legal system doesn't seem to take terrorism seriously as a national threat. Through...

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - A militant cleric jailed for his role in the 2002 Bali bombings will be among 53,000 inmates receiving sentence reductions to mark Indonesia's independence day, authorities and media reports said Saturday. Abu Bakar Bashir, alleged spiritual head of the al-Qaida-linked terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, was convicted in March of conspiracy in the Bali bombings that killed 202 people, many of them Australian tourists. Others convicted in the Bali blasts will also receive reductions in their prison terms, Minister of Justice and Human Rights Hamid Awaluddin told the Jakarta Post. "Convicts with a record of good behavior...

JAKARTA: Indonesia’s Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of militant Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, upholding his 30-month prison sentence for his part in the conspiracy behind the 2002 Bali bombings, a lawyer for Bashir said yesterday. The appeal had been filed in late June after appellate judges at Jakarta High Court upheld a 30-month jail sentence handed down by the lower court in March. “The appeal was rejected, but we will pursue a judicial review of the case,” the aging cleric’s lawyer, Mahendra Data, said. Data said he had been notified “verbally” on August 3 about the court’s decision,...

This week's Indonesian court verdict against Abu Bakar Bashir on 'evil conspiracy' charges meted out a pickpocket's punishment to a terrorist ringleader responsible for an atrocity second only to 9/11. Bashir's 2 ½ year sentence for the October 2002 Bali nightclub bombing is a parody of justice and an insult to the lost lives of the U.S., Australian, Indonesian and other citizens who died in the attack. This sentence is especially bitter because the U.S. and Australia have expended so much blood and treasure to rid the world of terrorism elsewhere in Asia. But in Indonesia, there is no justice...

ACCUSED of providing long-term liaison between al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the young man with impeccable JI lineage smiled gently and began his long litany of denials and refusals. Abdul Rohim, the youngest son of accused terrorist cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, denied he had ever met convicted Australian terrorist Jack Roche in Pakistan. He insisted his years in the sprawling Pakistani city of Karachi were spent studying, not working with al-Qaeda. He told The Australian he did not even recognise the name of the al-Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, let alone serve...

JAKARTA, Indonesia — The Indonesian government yesterday opened the retrial of an Indonesian cleric charged with leading an al-Qaida-linked group and inciting its members to carry out attacks against U.S. interests. Prosecutors seek to prove Abu Bakar Bashir, 66, is responsible for last year's suicide bomb attack on the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, which killed 12 people, mostly Indonesians. The charges are filed under a new anti-terror law, which authorizes the death penalty if he is found guilty. The government also charged Bashir with involvement in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, which killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists. That...