Terrorists targeted, not Muslims: FBI
I Wayan Juniartha, The Jakarta Post, Nusa Dua, Bali
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert S Mueller restated here on Friday night that U.S. security efforts in operation in various countries around the world, were directed at terrorism and not Islam.
"We understand that this is a war on terrorists, persons who kill women and children. It is certainly not a war against Muslims or Islam," he told a brief press conference after attending a closed-door meeting with Indonesia's Coordinating Minister for Political, Social and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and National Police Chief Gen. Dai Bachtiar.
The meeting was held in the Frangipani Room of the Sheraton- Bali International Convention Center under unusually tight security.
Mueller also had a meeting with Indonesia's National Intelligence Body (BIN) chief AM Hendropriyono on Saturday morning at the five-star Ritz Carlton Hotel, where the FBI entourage stayed during their two-day visit to Bali.
The United States, Mueller added, had large Muslim American, Seikh American, and Arab American communities.
He described how in the days immediately after the September 11 terrorist attack the U.S. administration sought to assure the security and safety of those communities.
Since that tragic day, Mueller said, the FBI had investigated 325 allegations of threats and assaults against Muslim Americans.
As the result of those investigations eighty five individuals had been indicted by local authorities, and eleven individuals had been charged at federal level.
"The point we wish to make is that Muslim Americans, Arab Americans, and Sikh Americans are part of our community, and we will aggressively investigate and prosecute anyone who seeks to make threats or takes action against those communities," he said.
Concerning the possibility of the existence of Al-Qaeda terrorist cells in the South East Asia region, Mueller said that the U.S. government, together with the countries in that region, were seeking to identify those individuals, and to assure that they did not and could not present a threat of additional terrorist attacks.
"We had, in my mind, an exceptionally productive meeting. I look forward to additional meetings not only today or tomorrow but also in the future, perhaps in Washington DC."
A similar tone of satisfaction over the result of the meeting was conveyed by Coordinating Minister for Political, Social, and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
"I have described our policy, strategy, and operational steps in dealing with the international terrorism issue. The National Police chief has also explained in great detail our concrete measures, and I am under the impression that the United States understands that Indonesia is, and will keep, working seriously to address that issue," he said.
Susilo stressed that the United States government did not ask the Indonesian government to fulfill certain sets of requirements or conditions in order to show that Indonesian was serious in combating international terrorism.
"I refute the allegation that Indonesia did nothing to fight international terrorism, but I have to explain that we have very complicated domestic problems, which we must deal with simultaneously."
Besides terrorism, those problems included communal conflicts, separatism, and law and order enforcement, he said.
Susilo said that international cooperation in the war against terrorism must be based on a mutual understanding that each country had different legal systems, laws, and domestic mechanisms to cope with the terrorism threat.