Aussie Labor leader warns of 'Islamist RI'

Aussie Labor leader warns of 'Islamist RI'

Agence France-Presse, Sydney, Australia

Australia's most powerful Labor Party leader and the premier of its largest state has warned the country to prepare for the threat of an aggressive Islamic government in Indonesia.

New South Wales state Premier Bob Carr said in a speech late on Tuesday that Australia increasingly had to think about threats to its security in the Asia Pacific region.

"We must think about the possibility of an Islamist Indonesia," he told an audience of business leaders and foreign policy specialists.

"It was only 10 years ago that we were being reassured that an aggressive Islamism would be inconceivable in Indonesia. Now, Islamic schools across Java are full of Arabic language material focused on the Middle East and well disposed to Osama bin Laden."

Carr, also widely touted as a possible successor to embattled federal Labor opposition leader Simon Crean, delivered his warning as the radical Indonesian Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir was reported here to have sought to fire up fellow Muslim prisoners with a speech branding U.S. leaders, Christians and Jews a "Satanic group."

Bashir, alleged spiritual leader the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) terror network who is serving a four-year sentence for treason, also blamed Australian officials for a ban on him delivering his jail cell tirade accusing the U.S., Christians and Jews of trying to destroy Islam.

Bashir, had reportedly planned to tell his fellow Muslim inmates in Jakarta's Salemba prison they should fight against what he called "a Satanic group" which said was led by the U.S. government and which included Zionist Jews and extremist Christians.

The Australian newspaper said in a report from Jakarta that after prison authorities withdrew permission for him to deliver the speech personally it was printed in booklet form and distributed to prisoners and journalists.

Bashir was quoted as saying the U.S. government "and its lackeys" had "resurrected their desire for war against Muslims, they have already beaten the drums of war against Islam and its followers."

The "cursed ones' crusade has flared again."

Australian officials later scoffed at the suggestion they were responsible for Bashir's speech being banned.

Carr was accused by some Muslim leaders recently of stirring racial tensions when he called on gang-leaders in Sydney's south- western suburbs -- heavily populated by Muslims -- to leave the country if they were not prepared to obey the laws.

But he stood with Sheikh Taj Din al-Hilali, spiritual leader of Australia's Islamic community, before a crowd of 30,000 Muslims this week trying to head off growing cross-cultural tensions which have become evident here in recent times.

Carr delivered an address to the crowd in which he said mutual respect was the key to avoiding a clash of civilizations and that a strong multicultural Australia needed to respect different cultures.

"We want a dialog with civilizations, we don't want a clash of civilizations, we want the people of the world respecting one another," he said.

The call came amid tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims in Sydney over a crime wave blamed on young Middle Eastern men, including a series of gang rapes, murders and revenge killings between feuding families.