Indonesia?
Is Al-Qaeda lurking in Indonesia?
January 14, 2001
U.S. intelligence has long known that Usama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network has had its tentacles in Indonesia. In August 2001, it was learned that al-Qaeda had acquired a highly detailed, hand-drawn map of the U.S. diplomatic compound in Jakarta. The discovery stoked immediate fears of a U.S. Embassy bombing similar to those in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Since the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, signs of al Qaeda activity in Indonesia have reportedly multiplied. U.S. and Indonesian intelligence officials say they believe that hundreds of foreigners who may be linked to al-Qaeda and coming from as far away as Europe visited a secret training camp last year in the jungles of Sulawesi, an island in central Indonesia.
The leader of the country's largest and most-violent Muslim militia has acknowledged to police that he was offered financial backing by a bin Laden aide. And intelligence officials said they have identified links between bin Laden and a prominent Muslim cleric who heads a paramilitary group. U.S. officials also have become increasingly concerned that some al-Qaeda members may have established "sleeper cells" in Indonesia that could become operational now that many of the group's leaders in Afghanistan have been forced into hiding, captured or killed.
But despite such information, U.S. and Indonesian officials said they still are trying to ascertain the scope of al-Qaeda's operations in Indonesia and the network's connections with indigenous extremist groups. The prospect of significant al-Qaeda activity in Indonesia has prompted the U.S. to put Indonesia on a short list of nations to focus on as the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism expands beyond Afghanistan.
In many ways, Indonesia is an easy place for terrorist groups to operate. Composed of more than 17,000 islands, it has some of the world's most porous borders. Law enforcement and banking regulations are lax. Guns and explosives are easy to purchase. Indonesia also is home to several radical Muslim groups, which want the officially secular nation to adopt rigid Islamic laws. Although most Indonesians do not support the local militants, the strength of the groups has mushroomed in recent years, fueled in part by increasing poverty and a surging interest in fanatical fundamentalist Islamic theology.
A sectarian conflict in the Moluccas islands, where for three years Muslim militants have been waging a jihad against Christian villagers, provides foreign trainees exposure to fighting. Indonesian police and military officials have publicly denied that foreign terrorist groups have set up training camps in the country. But privately, intelligence and government officials said they believe al-Qaeda operatives ran a makeshift training facility on Sulawesi last year. The camp, officials said, was located in dense jungle near the port city of Poso, which has been the scene of religious fighting.
The officials said the camp, a collection of ramshackle huts where recruits were taught how to use automatic weapons and build bombs, was operated by al-Qaeda members with the assistance of local Muslim militants. Unlike other paramilitary training facilities in Indonesia, a country where political groups often have armed wings, this camp was a well-kept secret. Indonesian intelligence officials estimated that over the past year several hundred people, many of them from Europe, Pakistan and the Middle East, entered the country posing as aid workers to reach the camp.
The officials said that in August and October, police briefly detained several non-Indonesians traveling in the Poso area, but they were released after showing local officials a letter from a Muslim charity based in southern Sulawesi stating they were going to Poso to help rebuild mosques. A senior Indonesian intelligence official said investigators subsequently discovered that the charity, known as the "Crisis Prevention Committee," had connections to Usama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Police have concluded the foreigners were probably going to or from the camp when they were detained.
The senior official said intelligence agents began looking for the camp after authorities in Spain passed along information that had been obtained in the investigation of eight suspected al-Qaeda members arrested in November. The evidence indicated that hundreds of foreign fighters had traveled to the Poso area for training last year.
U.S. and Indonesian officials say they suspect al-Qaeda is associated with the Laskar Jihad and Laskar Mujaheddin militant groups, but they lack evidence to make a conclusive link. A U.S. official said it remains unclear whether significant numbers of al-Qaeda operatives remain in Indonesia.
Discovery of the hand-drawn map of the U.S. diplomatic compound was confirmed by U.S. officials, who declined to give a full account of the incident, citing national security concerns. After the map was found, already-tight security at the embassy was increased and U.S. counter- terrorism experts mounted an intense investigation into who might be planning an attack, but their efforts yielded no definitive suspects.
The map's existence added to fears for the compound's security in October, after the United States began its bombing campaign in Afghanistan. Thousands of protesters besieged the embassy, causing the State Department to evacuate nonessential diplomatic personnel from the country.
The lack of firm intelligence about al-Qaeda is one of the key challenges facing the United States as it attempts to broaden its campaign against terrorism. For years, Western intelligence agencies paid little attention to Indonesia as a potential base for international terrorists. The country's intelligence services also failed to collect information, because they were distracted by separatist rebellions and almost four years of political turmoil in the capital, Jakarta. Indonesia's economic problems hampered what little intelligence-gathering was attempted. The government cannot afford equipment that is standard in many countries, including devices to monitor cellular phones.
Even if details of al-Qaeda's operations in Indonesia become clearer, pursuing terrorists in the conflict-racked country of 220 million could prove to be a problem. Unlike Somalia or Iraq, Indonesia has a friendly relation- ship with the United States, making unilateral military action by Washington highly unlikely. Cooperating with local forces, as the United States is doing in the Philippines, also is doubtful because of a U.S. law, passed in the wake of the Indonesian army's human-rights abuses in East Timor, that prevents military assistance to Indonesia. U.S. military officials have said the law should be rescinded in the interest of the war on terrorism.
U.S. officials also have quietly expanded the scope of intelligence about terrorist-related issues that is shared with Indonesia, with the hope that it might spur police and military leaders to take more aggressive steps to crack down on extremist groups. But the effort has so far received a mixed reception.
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