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MANILA (AP): An Indonesian member of the al-Qaeda-linked Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) was among six Muslim militants killed at the weekend in a sea clash with Philippine troops off the country's southern coast, an official said Sunday. The Philippine army, navy, and marines were involved in Saturday's gunbattle that killed the six militants aboard a motorboat off Tawi Tawi province, 1,050 kilometers southwest of Manila, navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Giovanni Carlo Bacordo said. Indonesian terrorist suspect Gufran, allegedly belonged to the Indonesian-based militant group JI, was among the dead, Bacordo said. Five Filipinos members of Abu Sayyaf, a group also thought...

LONDON - Four men arrested on suspicion of organizing terrorist training camps in Britain were tracked by Spanish investigators earlier this year as they traveled through Spain from France en route to North Africa, officials said Monday. The statement from Spain's interior ministry was the first public indication of an international link to the probe, which led to the arrests late Friday and early Saturday of 14 people suspected of training and recruiting for terror attacks. British prosecutors, meanwhile, said eight other people allegedly involved in a separate plot to blow up U.S.-bound aircraft are unlikely to be brought to...

JAKARTA (AP): Southeast Asian terrorists are "regrouping, adapting and recruiting," and more regional cooperation is required to defeat them, Indonesia's president said Monday. In a speech to lawmakers from the Asia-Pacific region, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono warned that the campaign against militants would be a long one, and said it would need to be fought on "political, economical, legal, social and spiritual" fronts. "We know that the terrorists are regrouping, adapting and recruiting," he said. "We all need to intensify our cooperation to fight terrorism." Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, is a key front in the war against terrorism...

Islamic hard-line groups joined the chorus of condemnation on Sunday against militants who used suicide bombings to wage jihad in the world's most populous Muslim country. However, the groups called for a dialog between them and other Muslim leaders, along with the government to discuss jihad, as they said the war on terror had tarnished their image. At a seminar attended by leaders of the Indonesian Mujahiddin Assembly (MMI), Hisbuth Tahrir, the Islam Defender Front (FPI) and several other hard-line groups, they agreed that suicide bomb attacks could not be accepted as jihad. "It's because the attackers have committed suicide...

(Document Summary) Copyright Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Nov/Dec 2005 To Jihad and Back Membongkar Jamaah Islamiyah: Pengakuan Mantan Anggota JI (Unveiling Jamaah Islamiyah: Confessions of an Ex-JIMember) By Nasir Abas 332 pages, Jakarta: Grafindo Khazanah Ilmu, 2005 (in Bahasa Indonesia) Before interviewing Abu Bakar Bashir, the radical Islamic cleric, in Jakarta's Cipinang prison in August, I imagined an angry firebrand under heavy guard. Instead, I found a smiling, bespectacled lecturer eating dates and surrounded by doting acolytes. "It's true there's a clash ofcivilizations between Islam and the West," he explained politely, "because Islam and infidels, the right and the...

ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (AFP): Indonesian Islamic militant Dulmatin, who has a US$10 million bounty on his head, is hiding out in the Philippines, a spokesman of the main Muslim separatist group here said Friday. Dulmatin, an al-Qaeda trained electronics expert thought to be one of the masterminds of the 2002 Bali bombings, is in Mindanao, said Eid Kabalu from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). He said Dulmatin was with the senior leader of militant group Abu Sayyaf, Khadaffy Janjalani, as well as another alleged member of Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), Umar Patek. The U.S. reward announced Thursday for information that...

Two Malaysian militants testifying in the trial of Abu Bakar Ba'asyir acknowledged on Tuesday that the elderly cleric was the spiritual leader of the regional terrorist group, Jamaah Islamiyah (JI). Malaysians Syamsul Bahri and Amran bin Mansur, who fled to Indonesia in 2002 and 2003 respectively to avoid arrest by the Malaysian police, also admitted that they were members of JI, which the United Nations has declared a terrorist organization. Ba'asyir is currently on trial for his alleged role in the deadly Bali bombing in October 2002 and the J.W. Marriott Hotel attack that killed 12 people in August 2003....

BANGKOK, Thailand (DPA): Indonesia and Malaysia have provided Thai police with photographs and other information related to 19 suspected members of two radical Islamic groups that may be planning terrorist attacks on next month's APEC summit in Bangkok, news reports said Wednesday. Police at checkpoints along the Thai-Malaysian border have been put on alert to ensure the terrorist suspects do no enter Thailand, according to security officials quoted by the Thai-language daily Khom Chat Luek. Indonesian authorities gave Thai police a list of 11 people suspected to have been under the command of the Indonesian terrorist suspect Hambali before...