Anti-Iraq moves a trigger for Bali explosion

B. Raman, Institute for Topical Studies Chennai, India, The Straits Times, Asia News Network, Singapore

The Bali blasts represent the second terrorist strike probably connected to the anniversary of the beginning of the United States air strikes in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, and the preparations for a possible U.S.-Britain intervention in Iraq to have President Saddam Hussein overthrown.

The first was the ramming by a boat filled with explosives against a French supertanker off Yemen on Oct. 6. A terrorist group in Aden is reported to have claimed responsibility, but its claim is yet to be verified.

While the Yemen incident was apparently a suicide attack, it is not clear yet whether the Bali explosions were.

For many months now, Indonesia has been developing into a major hub of Southeast Asia-based Islamic terrorist groups with two motivations -- a pan-Islamic one aiming to achieve a caliphate in Southeast Asia covering southern Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, southern Philippines and Brunei, and an anti-Christian one targeting the Christian community, many of whose members happen to be ethnic Chinese.

The developments in Indonesia have an interesting parallel in the pan-Islamic and anti-Christian motivations operating in tandem in Pakistan and the pan-Islamic and anti-Hindu motivations operating in tandem in India.

The pan-Islamic organizations of Pakistan, which are members of Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front for Jihad against the U.S. and Israel -- the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (Huji), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) -- seek to achieve an Islamic caliphate in South Asia and look upon Hinduism as a corrupting influence on Islam, not only in Pakistan but also in Indonesia. They blame Hinduism for making Islam soft in Indonesia.

Against this background, the selection of Bali, with its predominantly Hindu population, for this most devastating terrorist strike is disquieting.

Indonesian President Megawati Soekarnoputri's mother was a Muslim of Balinese Hindu origin, and Islamic extremist elements in Indonesia referred to this before her election.

However, there is no evidence to show that the explosions had anything to do with the predominantly Hindu nature of the island or Megawati's family background.

Bali seems to have been chosen for the terrorist strike mainly because security precautions there were very relaxed as it was not considered by the Indonesian intelligence and security agencies as a likely trouble spot.

In an assessment prepared in April, the security agencies had identified six security "trouble spots" in Indonesia from the point of view of the fight against Islamic terrorism -- Aceh, Maluku, Papua, Sampit in Central Kalimantan, Poso in Central Sulawesi and West Timor.

Indonesian intelligence officials say foreign terrorist groups had used Poso as a training ground in recent years. The attraction of Bali to the terrorists also arises from the fact that it gets a large number of Australian and Western tourists.

Among the foreign nationals who fought in the International Islamic Front as members of its Pakistani components were American Muslims (mostly Afro-Americans), nationals/residents of West European countries, Thais, Malaysians, Singaporeans who projected themselves as Malays from Malaysia, and Indonesians.

Their total number was estimated at 200. Practically all of them had been recruited by HUM, Huji and LET teams.

There were about 400 foreign students recruited by the HUM, the Huji and the LET from Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, who were studying at the various madrasah in Pakistan before being inducted into the jihad.

Of the 190 being trained in Sindh, 86 were from Malaysia, 82 from Thailand and 22 from Indonesia.

Of the 151 being trained in Punjab, 61 were from Malaysia, 49 from Thailand and 41 from Indonesia. Of the 59 being trained in the North-west Frontier Province, 21 were from Indonesia, 20 from Malaysia and 18 from Thailand.

Thus, there were 167 Malaysians, 149 Thais and 84 Indonesians being trained in the various madrasahs of Pakistan. Evidence available indicates that while the terrorists from Malaysia and possibly Singapore were trained in the headquarters of the JEM in the Binori complex in Karachi, those from Indonesia were trained in the Muridke complex of the LET, near Lahore.

The HUM had always been training recruits from southern Philippines and Myanmar, in addition to those from Xinjiang, Chechnya, Dagestan and the Central Asian republics. The Huji trains those from Bangladesh.

Before Oct. 7 last year, the training camps of the HUM and the Huji were located in eastern Afghanistan. It is not known where they have been moved since then. However, it is known that, in the past, they had used the infrastructure of the Tablighi Jamaat in Raiwind, in Punjab, for training purposes.

Since July, unconfirmed rumors have been circulating in Karachi and elsewhere about a large number of members of the al Qaeda, including some leaders such as Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Osama's No. 2, having escaped to Bangladesh, with the help of the Huji, which has an active branch in Bangladesh assisted by the Bangladeshi military-intelligence establishment.

What seems to have happened and is still happening is that many Bangladeshis, Arakanese, Malays from Singapore and Malaysia, Indonesians and Filipinos, who had fought as members of the HUM, the Huji and the LET against the Northern Alliance and subsequently against the U.S. in Afghanistan, have been finding their way, with the help of the Huji and the Jamaat-e-Islami of Bangladesh, which is a member of the ruling coalition in Dhaka, into Bangladesh.

Unconfirmed reports also mentioned the presence in Bangladesh of Riduan Isamuddin of Indonesia, better known as Hambali, the 36-year-old cleric wanted by the U.S. and four Southeast Asian countries as the terrorist mastermind of the Asian operations of Osama's al-Qaeda network.

It is likely some of these terrorist dregs have since sneaked back to their countries of origin. The Bali explosions probably mark the return to Indonesia of some of the dregs from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The talk in the Pakistani madrasahs has been that members of the International Islamic Front would be carrying out a well- orchestrated series of terrorist attacks against Western nationals and interests in different parts of the world as warning signals to pre-empt U.S.-British military strikes against Iraq.

The attacks on the French tanker off Yemen and in Bali were apparently part of this planned series, and more are likely as the U.S. and Britain go ahead with their preparations for an attack on Iraq.