Govt in dark about Indonesian fighters in Afghanistan

Abu Hanifah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government said on Saturday that it still had no knowledge about the fate of some 300 Indonesians who reportedly went to Afghanistan last month to fight with the Taliban regime against the United States.

Although the Islamic Youth Movement (GPI), which claimed to have arranged their departure, has refused to cooperate with authorities, they claim that 50 out of an estimated 300 Indonesians had managed to flee Afghanistan into Pakistan.

The Indonesian embassy in Islamabad has been ordered to contact volunteer fighters returning across the Afghanistan border to help with their evacuation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wahid Supriyadi told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

The government had also contacted their sponsors in Jakarta, he said, adding that, "They never responded".

Concern for the fate of Indonesians fighting for the Taliban has grown following the fall of Kabul, captured by the Northern Alliance forces last week.

Media reports said that hundreds of Pakistanis and Arabs who fought for the Taliban had been mercilessly massacred by the Northern Alliance when they captured Mazar-i-Sharif last week.

Hundreds of young Indonesians enlisted to go to Afghanistan, heeding the call of Taliban leaders to wage a jihad against the United States.

GPI claimed that it had sent 300 volunteers, most of them entering Afghanistan via the Pakistani border.

Wahid said the precise number of Indonesians and their identity could not be determined because they never registered with the embassy when they reached Pakistan.

"Due to a lack of data, we are facing difficulties in monitoring their presence and therefore in evacuating them," he said.

Back at home, the government had earlier threatened to revoke the citizenship of Indonesians taking part in foreign wars, invoking the country's immigration law.

GPI chairman Suaib Didu confirmed with the Post on Saturday that he had been contacted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Indonesian embassy in Islamabad several times regarding the fate of the volunteers.

"But I ignored their calls," he said. "I have a suspicion that the calls were tapped by parties who want to harm us. What would happen to my people there if these parties managed to locate them?"