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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: manny t who wrote (51717)	10/13/2002 10:31:56 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

what happened in Bali Sounds like they went after tourists by bombing the night club. Maybe this will make Indonesia stop resisting the hunt for terrorists. I understand they have been giving our people a hard time. We are dealing the the largest concentration of Muslims in the world in Indonesia. 228 Million of them. I have not read any articles on the penetration of "Islamists" in the country, but I would suspect it is nowhere near as prevalent as in the ME. Here is a summary from an Australian Source, "Strategic Issues." >>>>- Islamic Extremism in SE Asia - There is little actual evidence of a link between SE Asian Muslim extremists and al Qaeda (Monfries J. 'Extremist reporting', The Bulltein, letters 5/3/02) The greatest threat to Singapore is not economic, but the effect of potential terrorism on its security and racial /religious harmony - according to its Prime Minister (Dodd T. 'Singapore warns of spectre of terrorism', FR, 12/2/02) US Deputy Defence Secretary recently identified al-Qa'ida activities in Indonesia as a priority. This is bad news in terms of rebuilding Australia's relationships. However Indonesia is one of the few places where it is possible to get practical jihad experience - and it is possible that many terrorist leaders have fled there from Afghanistan. Might the US policy of not distinguishing between terrorists and the countries that harbour them apply to Indonesia? (Burchill S. 'Risks in targeting Indonesia', A, 28/1/02) It has been claimed (by an expert from Scotland's Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence) that (a) the centre of gravity of international terrorism has shifted from the Middle East to Asia due to loss of Afghanistan as a base (b) this could escalate due to Indonesia's reluctance to investigate terrorism - a reluctance that could eventually destroy it as a nation (c) al-Qa'ida had established the Jamaah Islamiah group in Indonesia - whose operations were international - and whose goals (captured members claimed) included establishing cells in Australia. The latter is seen as a Western liberal democracy whose political environment makes it vulnerable to terrorist infiltration (Lyall K and Chutov M 'Asia now a terrorist haven, says academic', A, 25/1/02) Foreign terrorist groups have established camps in Sulawesi and support domestic Islamic militants in their war against Christians, according to Indonesia's top intelligence official (Solomon J. 'Al Qaeda's camps in Indonesia', Financial Review, 14/12/01)<<<< troll.apana.org.au Here is another one from a source that seems to be Christian oriented. >>>>>>>[23-JAN-02] - Five suspected members of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network arrived in Indonesia from Yemen last July with a plan to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, a high-ranking U.S. official has revealed. But Indonesian authorities balked at taking action, allowing the men to slip out of the country after they realized they had been discovered, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. U.S. diplomats surmised that authorities had intentionally scared the team away so as not to have to confront them. In Washington, another U.S. official on Wednesday confirmed that an al-Qaida plot to detonate a truck bomb at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta around July or August of 2001 was disrupted. Since Sept. 11, President Megawati Sukarnoputri has tread a fine line between pleasing Washington - one of its major foreign donors - and reflecting the disquiet many of its Muslim citizens feel about the war in Afghanistan. The matter has been further complicated by Megawati's hands-off policy toward the military. This has allowed the generals to retain links with domestic radicals, in particular the Laskar Jihad militia which is blamed for thousands of deaths in a war with Christians in Maluku province. Laskar Jihad is not a grassroots movement. Western intelligence sources say hardline generals covertly set up the group in 2000 as a tool to destabilize reformist President Abdurrahman Wahid and thwart efforts to assert civilian control over the military after decades of dictatorship. Before the embassy plot was revealed, an Indonesian general told The Associated Press that Laskar Jihad was financed with money embezzled from the army's main warfighting element. The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said an audit revealed a $20 million deficit in the unit's budget. ourworld.compuserve.com