Ba'asyir preached about turning Australia into an Islamic state

Ba'asyir preached about turning Australia into an Islamic state

Agence France-Presse, Sydney, Australia

Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, spiritual leader of the outlawed group Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), had preached in Sydney about turning Australia into an Islamic state, it was reported on Tuesday.

Citing an audio-recording believed to feature Ba'asyir's voice, The Sydney Morning Herald said the cleric had told Muslims he supported jihad -- holy war -- and backed conflict and war in defense of the faith.

He said it was "an abasement" for muslims to live in a non- believing nation, the paper said.

"The Islamic faithful in Australia must endeavor to bring about an Islamic state in Australia, even if it is 100 years from now," Ba'asyir is said to have told a gathering of the faithful in Sydney.

He also called on Australian Muslims to help create a Muslim state in Indonesia, but the tape did not directly call for any violent overthrow of the Indonesian government or to terrorist actions.

It is believed the recording was made at an evening prayer meeting at an unknown Sydney location in 1993.

Videotapes of Ba'asyir's sermons have been seized from some of the homes of Indonesian Muslims raided recently by the intelligence agency ASIO as part of Australia's anti-terrorist crackdown in the aftermath of the Bali bombing.

Ba'asyir was arrested by Indonesian police on Oct. 20 as a suspect in series of church bombings on Christmas Eve, 2000, and a plot to assassinate Megawati Soekarnoputri before she became President of Indonesia.

JI has been blamed for the Bali bombings which claimed some 190 lives, almost 90 of them Australian.