Terror Network’s Academic Outposts

At the time, nothing seemed suspicious to Norhisam, a student at the Luqmanul Hakiem boarding school in this tiny village.

Headmaster Mukhlas taught Arabic and led the students in prayer. His brother Amrozi studied religion. Traveling preacher Abu Bakar Bashir visited twice a month to meet with the teachers and pray with the students.

What Norhisam didn’t see was another kind of school activity: the building of an anti-American terror network.

Authorities say the boarding school, or pesantren, was the southern Malaysian outpost of Jemaah Islamiah, a regional terrorist group that is blamed for the deadly Oct. 12 bombings of two Bali nightclubs and dozens of other fatal attacks in Southeast Asia.

Mukhlas, Amrozi and Bashir have been arrested in Indonesia and accused of playing key roles in the Bali attack, which killed 202 people. At least six more Bali suspects also have ties to the school, authorities say.

Norhisam, 23, who now lives with his parents about a mile from the school, said he couldn’t believe such pious men would do the things they’re accused of.

“I was surprised, especially when they arrested Mukhlas,” he said. “When I knew him, he never talked about violence or opposing the government.”

Luqmanul Hakiem, which was shut down by Malaysian authorities last year, is one of at least four boarding schools in Malaysia and Indonesia founded by Jemaah Islamiah leaders to promote creation of an Islamic state in Southeast Asia. During the 1990s, the schools provided a safe base of operations, allowing Jemaah Islamiah to educate thousands of students in militant Islam and secretly recruit the best and the brightest for terror operations. Among the students were some of the militants’ own children.

Students say most of their classmates were oblivious to the violent intentions of their teachers, but a select few graduated to the network’s institutions of higher learning: Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and Jemaah Islamiah’s own “Islamic Military Academy,” believed to be in the southern Philippines.

It is not entirely clear how the radical teachers drew students into the terrorist network.

But in other locations, Jemaah Islamiah has recruited members by inviting prospects to attend private study sessions and teaching them it was their duty to defend Islam from attack by infidels.

Including the nine people tied to Luqmanul Hakiem, police say 17 suspects in the Bali bombing have connections to at least one of the four schools.

Bashir, the alleged leader of Jemaah Islamiah who denies any part in terror activities, and Mukhlas, who has confessed that he was the main organizer of the Bali plot, have ties to at least three of the schools.

Similarly, authorities say several suspects arrested for plotting to blow up the U.S. Embassy and other targets in Singapore in 2001 had ties to the Malaysian school, which is an hour from the causeway that connects the two countries. Mukhlas is married to the sister of Hashim bin Abas, a Singapore engineer arrested in the embassy plot.

Boarding schools where Islam is taught as a way of life are a long-standing, respected institution of learning, especially in Indonesia.

Isolated from the larger community, the schools are usually located in remote villages or in walled compounds in cities. Typically the headmaster, known as a kyai, commands strong personal loyalty from his students. Indonesian police are often hesitant to enter the schools, even when suspects have taken refuge there.

In Malaysia, there are about 520 private religious schools with 74,000 students. The schools are regulated by the government, but Luqmanul Hakiem was able to operate for a decade before it was shut down following the discovery of the Singapore plot.

In Indonesia, there are more than 12,700 pesantrens with nearly 3 million students. Indonesia does not regulate the schools, although most teach a moderate form of Islam in keeping with the country’s tradition of religious tolerance.

“It’s important to stress that there are thousands and thousands of pesantrens across Indonesia and most are perfectly benign,” said Sidney Jones, Indonesia project director of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, which has studied the link between pesantrens and Jemaah Islamiah. Mainstream Muslim leaders in Indonesia are angry that Jemaah Islamiah subverted the system for its own aims.

“If these terrorist leaders claimed they were Muslims, they were not only distorting the teachings of Islam but they have raped the teachings of Islam,” declared Syafi’i Ma’arif, chairman of the 30-million member Muhammadiyah, Indonesia’s second-largest Islamic organization.

Bashir and Abdullah Sungkar, another radical cleric, founded their first boarding school, Al Mukmin, in the city of Solo in central Java in 1971. They ran afoul of the Suharto military government and were jailed, finally fleeing to Malaysia in 1985, where they established a new base of operations. They returned in 1999, after Suharto was ousted, and Sungkar died soon after.

Among those who studied or taught at Al Mukmin were several Muslims who became prominent terrorists:

* Abdul Qadir Baraja, an early associate of Bashir and Sungkar, was a lecturer at Al Mukmin. In 1985, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison for his role in the bombing of Borobodur, Indonesia’s world-renowned Buddhist monument.

* Fathur Rohman Al Ghozi, who graduated from Al Mukmin in 1989, became known as Mike the Bombmaker. He played a key role in the foiled Singapore bomb plot as well as bombings in Manila in 2000 that killed 22 people. He was sentenced last year to 12 years in prison in the Philippines and faces further charges.

* Mukhlas, who was born Ali Gufron, graduated from Al Mukmin in 1983 and stayed on for two years to teach Arabic grammar. He spent four years in Afghanistan, authorities say, and was the chief organizer of the Bali bombing, recruiting two of his own brothers for the attack.

Over the last 30 years, Al Mukmin has grown into a large complex with classrooms and dormitories for about 2,000 students. A new dorm building is under construction. Tuition, room and board cost less than $20 a month. There is no television and students are allowed to leave the compound only once a month. A sign in English and Arabic reads: “Jihad is our way. Death in the way of Allah is our highest aspiration.”

One of Al Mukmin’s earliest offshoots, the Al Islam school that was located in southern Sumatra and inspired by Sungkar, ended in disaster, adding to militant Muslims’ long list of grievances against the Indonesian government.

In 1989, the local military commander, concerned about the group’s rejection of government authority, went to the school to investigate. He was hacked to death.

The next day, 50 soldiers landed in helicopters and attacked the pesantren. According to the government version, the troops killed 35 people. A recent investigation by the human rights group Kontras concluded that 246 people died, including 94 who were under age 17. The assault was commanded by then-Col. A.M. Hendropriyono, now the chief of Indonesia’s intelligence agency.

For the next 12 years, the growing network of pesantrens kept a low profile in Indonesia. In Malaysia, Sungkar and Bashir were free to spread their radical brand of Islam. Both traveled around the country preaching and forming Koran study groups.

Another Indonesian cleric, Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, joined them in Malaysia. Today, he is alleged to be Jemaah Islamiah’s top operations leader and its key link to Al Qaeda. He is still at large.

Sungkar founded Luqmanul Hakiem, an isolated, two-story school, in 1992. Sungkar, Bashir and Hambali all preached there. Wan Min Wan Mat, a Malaysian university lecturer who had received military training in Afghanistan and in the southern Philippines, co-founded the school. Police say he headed Jemaah Islamiah in southern Malaysia. Charging as little as $13 a month for tuition, room and board, Luqmanul Hakiem attracted hundreds of students.

“The school, which catered to children of JI members as well as children of non-JI members, was essentially supported by funds collected by the JI network in both Malaysia and Singapore,” said Ong-Chew Peck Wan, a spokeswoman for the Singapore Ministry of Home Affairs.

Mukhlas became the principal and taught Arabic, as he had at Al Mukmin. Other key members of the Bali plot gathered there too.

Mukhlas’ brother Amrozi, who has admitted buying the minivan and chemicals used in the nightclub bombing, was a student. After his arrest he told police that his teachers, Mukhlas and Bashir, were his idols.

Imam Samudra, who has confessed to being the Bali bombing field coordinator, was a student and teacher. Jhoni Endrawan, the alleged deputy field commander who is also known as Idris, was a student.

In 1993, Mukhlas and several of his brothers founded another pesantren in the remote East Java village of Tenggulun, the family’s home. Named Al Islam, the rundown school later became a center for planning the Bali attack. Mukhlas’ brother Ali Imron, who has admitted helping to build the Bali bombs, taught at the school. So did Amrozi, who stored the chemicals and minivan in the village before the attack. Their half brother Ali Fauzi, who is wanted on weapons charges, is on the run.

Mubarak, an Al Mukmin graduate and Al Islam teacher, was the alleged treasurer of the Bali bombing. He was arrested with Imron as they tried to flee Indonesia.

In January 2002, soon after the discovery of the Singapore bomb plot, authorities in Malaysia closed Luqmanul Hakiem and arrested several people affiliated with the school.

But some were still at large. The following month, four Jemaah Islamiah leaders with links to the school -- Hambali, Mukhlas, Wan Min and Noor Din Muhamad Top -- met in Thailand to plan their revenge. Two more Jemaah Islamiah leaders attended the meeting. Some investigators believe Bashir was one of them. The group decided Bali would be the next target.

Today the gate of Luqmanul Hakiem is chained and padlocked. A sign in English and Malay reads: “NO TRESPASSING. Private Property.” A watchman angrily shoos away visitors.

Norhisam, the former student, says he studied Islam and learned to read the Koran in Arabic, but no one ever tried to recruit him for terrorist activity.

“I never heard of Jemaah Islamiah,” he said. “We were taught about computers, Microsoft Word and Power Point. We were never taught that violence was acceptable.”