Amien blames schools as terror source

Amien blames schools as terror source

Agencies, Jakarta

The government can do more to curb schools that served as training grounds for the hardliners who carried out some of the deadliest attacks since the Sept. 11, 2001 strikes in the United States, the People's Consultative Assembly Speaker Amien Rais said on Monday.

Amien also told the World Economic Forum in Singapore that boosting intelligence services and cutting off the flow of illicit funds to groups intent on terror attacks were essential for security and to prevent Islam from appearing in an unfavorable light.

He said it was time to take another look at education in Indonesia and at the Islamic schools that have served as fertile ground for recruiting young men to terror networks.

"The government seems a bit hesitant to pinpoint schools as cells of spreading terrorism," Amien, the former head of the country's second-largest Islamic organization, the 30-million- strong Muhammadiyah said, adding that the government of secular Indonesia could be afraid that a crackdown will result in a violent backlash.

Few analysts expect the government to place restrictions on the schools, especially before presidential elections next year when no politician wants to risk being branded un-Islamic in a nation which has the world's highest number of Muslims.

In Lamongan, East Java, one school -- Al-Islam -- has come under the spotlight because of its links to the three brothers, Ali Gufron, Amrozi and Ali Imron, arrested for the Bali bomb attacks on Oct. 12 last year.

A Bali court has sentenced Ali Gufron and Amrozi to death and Ali Imron to life in jail for their role in the bombings, which killed 202 people.

The government has blamed the Southeast Asian hardline group Jama'ah Islamiyah (JI) for the Bali blasts. Some security experts say the group is Osama bin Laden's Southeast Asian wing.

Amien also mentioned Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, the jailed cleric who many JI members around the region have recognized as their leader but who a court this year ruled as not being connected to the group.

"I don't know what to say...I don't have solid proof," said Amien, who is also the National Mandate Party chairman, of the verdict.

"From my logic, for sure, networks of terrorist groups are connected collectively or individually to Jama'ah Islamiyah," he was quoted by Reuters as saying.

The most famous Islamic school in Indonesia is Al-Mukmin, said an August report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. It said the school was co-founded in the central Java city of Solo by Ba'asyir.

However, chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) Hasyim Muzadi said the politicization of religions and economic injustices served as the main causes of radicalism in Islam.

"The politicization of religions, economic injustices and the narrow interpretation of Islamic teachings should be solved to prevent radicalism," said Hasyim.

NU is the country's largest Muslim organization with around 40 million members across the country.

He explained that Islam has a history of radicalism, since the death of Prophet Muhammad, especially when the religion was politicized.

"The killing of Imam Ali (the son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad) was committed by people who tightly held the religion. That happened because the religion was politicized and politics became religion," he told an international conference on Propagation Strategy of Moderate Islam to Face Radicalism.

Hasyim said radicalism started to emerge in Indonesia after the downfall of former dictator Soeharto in May 1998 and the beginning of the so-called Reform Era.

At that time, he said, radical individuals and groups who were suppressed by the Soeharto regime and fled to neighboring countries, especially Malaysia, returned to Indonesia.

He said, many students, some who had learned puritanism in Middle Eastern countries, also came back to the country.

"They thought Indonesia was like Saudi Arabia. They campaigned for the adoption of sharia here," he said.

He said NU and Muhammadiyah have decided to reject the inclusion of sharia in Indonesia due to a consideration of other faiths and the differences among Muslims here.