Terror Suspect Feared Reprisals

Weeks before the Oct. 12 Bali bombing, suspected terrorist leader Abu Bakar Bashir argued against carrying out attacks in Indonesia because of fears of a police crackdown, according to a report released Wednesday by the International Crisis Group.

But his views were disregarded by younger, more radical members of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah, causing a “deep rift” within the organization, according to the study by the Brussels-based conflict research organization.

“It was not that Bashir disagreed with violence as a tactic,” it says. “He was concerned that the timing was wrong.”

A Web site cited by a confessed participant asserts that an “International Death Battalion” carried out the Bali attack to kill Americans and their allies and avenge Muslim deaths.

The bombing of two nightclubs killed 191 people, about half of them Australians. Seven Americans died.

It is unclear whether Bashir knew of the attack in advance, but his prediction about a crackdown proved to be right. Police, who had been slow to investigate earlier terrorist attacks, are aggressively pursuing the Bali bombers and have arrested two key members of Jemaah Islamiah, Ali Gufron, better known as Mukhlas, and Imam Samudra, and more than a dozen other suspects.

Bashir was arrested after the attack and accused of heading Jemaah Islamiah. Police are investigating whether he is linked to earlier church bombings and a plot to assassinate President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

Bashir denies any involvement in terrorist activity and contends that Jemaah Islamiah does not exist. But he says that church bombings are justified in the struggle to protect Muslims, and he praises Osama bin Laden as a true Islamic warrior.

Police are looking into Bashir’s possible link to the Bali blasts, although the crisis group concludes that the radical 64-year-old cleric was probably not behind the attack.

“He almost certainly has deep knowledge of the JI network and how it operates, and he almost certainly had prior knowledge of some of the bombings that have taken place in Indonesia,” the report said. “He is unlikely, however, to have been the mastermind.”

The inflammatory Web site, www.istimata.com, was pointed out by Samudra after his arrest. It is unclear who wrote the material on the site, but it appears to take credit for the Bali attack.

The International Death Battalion’s mission, it says, was “to kill, fight and destroy America and its citizens along with other citizens from other countries who joined the infidel crusade” in Afghanistan.

Bali was selected as the target, the Web site says, because it is a center for drugs, prostitution and Jewish intelligence operatives. It is “the place where all the colonialists, terrorists, oppressors and destroyers of the respect for Indonesian Muslim women gather,” the site says.

The authors of the Web site blame the United States and its allies for the killing of Muslims in Afghanistan, the Middle East and other parts of the world.

President Bush “himself acknowledged that the so-called war of ‘Undefinite Justice’ is really a Crusade,” the site says. “Every blow will be repaid. Blood will be redeemed by blood. A life for a life.”

The Web site warns that more Westerners will be killed as long as American forces remain in Afghanistan and terrorist suspects are imprisoned at a U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Muslims who cooperate with the U.S. also will be killed, the site says.

“The attack on the Islamic State of Afghanistan by the international Christian community and its allies (Allied Force), under the Bush (may the Curse of Allah be upon him) leadership, will not be forgotten,” the site says.