'MMI has no links with Osama'
Kartika Bagus C, The Jakarta Post, Surakarta
Indonesian Mujahideen Council (MMI) chief Abu Bakar Baashir strongly denies having any links with the global al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden, although he says he supported the group's work for the cause of syariah (Islamic law).
"I do support what work al-Qaeda, Osama and the Taliban have done to uphold syariah. I also support them because they are open enemies of the United States ... but I have no links with them, and have no involvement in their work," Baashir told The Jakarta Post at the Islam People's Hall in the Central Java town of Surakarta on Monday.
"I can only support them with my statements and my prayers, since I have only those."
Baashir, however, said that he was acquainted with some of the 13 suspected al-Qaeda-linked militants, who were arrested by Malaysian police last December.
"I do know some of them, because they are my former students. I forget which ones were my students, but one of them was named Amar," the Muslim cleric said.
Police arrested the people, some of them members of the Malaysian Militants Group (KKM), for allegedly trying to create an Islamic government, and possibly having ties with Zacarias Moussaoui, a French national on trial for participating in the terrorist attacks on the United States last September.
They were also arrested for conducting secret meetings to set up a Daulah Islamiah (Islamic government), an activity deemed a threat to national security.
Of the 13 arrested under the Internal Security Act (ISA), Malaysian police identified three of them as Indonesians, namely Baashir, Hambali and Mohamad Iqbal.
Baashir said on Monday that he was not among those arrested and that he had left Malaysia following the fall of former president Soeharto in May 1998.
He added that neither he nor MMI had any plan to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, as implicated in an article in The Straits Times.
Baashir, 64, then called those accusing him of having terrorist links as kafirs who did not support the upholding of syariah.
Baashir moved to Malaysia in 1985 and became a religious teacher there after spending four years in an Indonesian prison for challenging former president Soeharto's government.
"During my stay overseas, I promoted jihad and the honor of dying in defense of one's religious belief. Most of the people were surprised by the themes I offered," Baashir recalled.
His organization, MMI, recently held a meeting between leaders of Muslim organizations in Yogyakarta to seek a common stand on how to uphold syariah.
The cleric runs an Islamic boarding school in Ngruki village in Sukoharjo, some 30 kilometers east of Surakarta. He reportedly has some 500 students.