Indonesian clerics 'founded militant group' in Malaysia
Yogita Tahilramani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
National Police deputy spokesman Brig. Gen. Edward Aritonang said on Tuesday that an allegedly al-Qaeda-linked militant group, Jamaah Islamiyah, was introduced in Malaysia by Surakarta, Central Java-born Abdullah Achmad Sungkar.
"After Mr. Sungkar died in 1999, his longtime friend, cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir from Surakarta, took over the leadership. Ba'asyir's lieutenant was Hambali, aka Nurjaman Riduan," Aritonang said on Tuesday, after receiving the information about the Indonesians from Malaysian police.
The statement, however, falls short of accusing Indonesia of harboring terrorists as alleged by several countries.
A Malaysian police team arrived here on Sunday to exchange information with Indonesian police.
Ba'asyir, who is currently running the Al-Mukmin boarding school in Surakarta he established with Abdullah, has been questioned twice by Indonesian Police over his alleged ties with international terrorist groups, but they found no evidence to arrest him.
Hambali, another Indonesian Muslim cleric, is a fugitive wanted by Indonesian Police for his role in the 2000 Christmas bombings and by Malaysian Police for his links to terrorist groups.
Both Ba'asyir and Hambali have Malaysian permanent resident status.
According to Malaysian police authorities, Ba'asyir and Hambali were among four Indonesian Muslim clerics who entered Malaysia in the mid-1980s, and injected their beliefs and fundamentalist teachings into the minds of young Muslims in Kedah, Kelantan and Johor. The other two were identified as fiery cleric Abdullah Sungkar, who died in 1999 and Muhammad Iqbal, who has been detained under Malaysia's Internal Security Act (ISA) since June 2001.
Ba'asyir was previously sentenced to a nine-year jail term in 1978 here for his involvement with a group called the Komando Jihad, which was fighting to set up an Islamic state in the country. With his jail term halved, he later ended up settling in Malaysia.
Abdullah, a former activist in the Islamic Youth Movement (GPI), received a 12-year jail term in 1978 for trying to set up the Islamic State of Indonesia.
With his jail term reduced to three years and 10 months by the Sukohardjo District Court, Abdullah was released in April 1982 pending the Supreme Court's verdict on the prosecutors' appeal, after which he fled Indonesia together with Ba'asyir.
In Malaysia, Abdullah Sungkar resided in the Air Bong village of Serting Tengah, Batu Ulin area of Negeri Sembilan. He lived in Malaysia under the name of Abdul Halim bin Ali. Despite being advised by top Masyumi party leader, Mohammad Natsir, to refrain from preaching extremist Islamic teachings, he continued preaching his firebrand Islam and soon drew in a lot of followers.
His teachings focused on an Islamic movement which he reportedly coined as Jamaah Islamiyah, that had the purpose of establishing a Daulah Islamiyah (Islamic nation) by applying the strategies of Eeman, (faith), Hijrah (fundamentalism) and Jihad (holy war).