Indonesia Seen as ‘Weakest Link’ in Anti-Terror War

From prayer groups to prison cells to this village of tin-roofed, clapboard houses, three Indonesian clerics pursued their vision of an Islamic state stretching across much of Southeast Asia.

Operating from a secluded compound an hour from Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, they shuttled to other Islamic lands and fanned out across Malaysia, living on donations and urging the faithful to join a holy war to protect Islam.

But authorities in Malaysia and Singapore say the three Indonesians also created terrorist “sleeper cells” that plotted to bomb targets, including the U.S. Embassy in Singapore, and played host to two of the Sept. 11 skyjackers in Malaysia.

Today, one of the three is behind bars in Malaysia. Another is on the run. The third has returned to Indonesia where he lives openly, giving frequent interviews and praising Osama bin Laden.

The alleged role of the clerics and a lack of action by Indonesian authorities against suspected terrorists underscore concerns in Southeast Asia that the world’s most populous Muslim nation is becoming a haven for those plotting attacks.

Since December, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines have arrested more than 40 alleged members of a terrorist network known as Jemaah Islamiah. But others escaped, authorities say, and likely fled to Indonesia, where law enforcement is ineffective and the country’s 17,508 islands offer countless hiding places.

Among the escapees may be one of the three clerics, Riduan Isamuddin, 37, who is better known as Hambali. Authorities say he ran terrorist activities for Jemaah Islamiah, and they also have linked him to a series of plots by Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network, including the Sept. 11 hijackings, the bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole in Yemen in October 2000 and plans to blow up 12 airliners over the Pacific Ocean in 1995.

Singaporean authorities say they have uncovered evidence that Jemaah Islamiah terror cells are operating in Indonesia. The Indonesian authorities have arrested no one.

“The weakest link here is Indonesia,” said a Malaysian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We’re sharing everything with them, but we’re not getting a lot of information back.”

Frank Lavin, the U.S. ambassador to Singapore, whose embassy was a target, has urged Indonesia to crack down.

“We saw a substantial number of arrests in Singapore; we saw equally aggressive moves in Malaysia; [but] we have not seen that kind of response yet in Indonesia, and it is a matter of concern,” he said recently.

Although most Indonesians are moderate Muslims, Islamic militancy has been on the rise since President Suharto, the country’s dictator for 32 years, was forced from office in 1998.

Indonesia shares a long border with Malaysia on the island of Borneo, and many of its smaller islands are within easy striking distance of Singapore, Malaysia and the southern Philippines. Four tons of ammonium nitrate allegedly acquired by Jemaah Islamiah for use in terrorist bombings in Singapore were moved recently to the Indonesian island of Batam, about 10 miles from Singapore, authorities say.

Indonesia is also hobbled by political instability, severe economic problems and the weak leadership of President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Wahid Supriyadi said Indonesia was trying to fight terrorism but could not detain people without sufficient proof. “The police cannot arrest people just based on assumptions,” he said.

The government’s stance today is a far cry from the brutal control of the Suharto years, when many Islamic preachers were locked up for their militant views.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Suharto’s suppression of dissent prompted some clerics to flee to Malaysia, planting the seeds of international terrorism there, authorities say. Among those who received sanctuary were Hambali and the other clerics: Abu Bakar Bashir, 63; and Mohammed Iqbal bin Abdul Rahman, 44.

Perhaps even more influential than those three was a fourth cleric, Abdullah Sungkar, who died in 1999.

The preachers formed prayer groups in various parts of Malaysia. From these groups, they recruited the most willing warriors and created small cells that carried out bank robberies, bombings and a political assassination, authorities say.

The clerics operated below the radar of Malaysia’s strict Internal Security Act and its ubiquitous intelligence agents until two recruits were killed in a bungled bank robbery last May. One cell member was captured and began spilling the group’s secrets.

One resident of suburban Kuala Lumpur who hosted prayer meetings at his home told Western reporters that the clerics used the sessions to attract followers disenchanted with Malaysia’s autocratic government. The clerics, especially Bashir, pushed their listeners to take part in jihad, or holy war, he said.

Bashir and Sungkar met sometime before 1970. Relatives say they were inseparable in the early years, often preaching and traveling together.

Sungkar, whose father was from Yemen, was a charismatic speaker and, if he were alive today, would no doubt be the clerics’ main leader, said Umar Baraja, Bashir’s brother-in-law.

Sungkar and Bashir founded the Al-Mukmin school in the city of Solo on Indonesia’s main island of Java in 1972 to promote their vision of an Islamic state. One graduate of the school, Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi, later linked up with the Jemaah Islamiah network and was arrested last month in Manila for his alleged role in numerous bombings.

In 1978, Sungkar and Bashir went to prison together in Indonesia for opposing the Suharto government. Both served nearly four years of a nine-year sentence. In prison, they met Iqbal, a Jakarta native who had been sentenced on similar charges.

Iqbal was the first to move to Malaysia in 1984, and the other two followed him the next year. Viewing the clerics as refugees from religious persecution, the Malaysian government gave them residency permits. They all took Malaysian names: Bashir became Abdus Samad and Iqbal became Abu Jibril. Abdullah Sungkar became Abdul Halim.

All three lived in the same neighborhood in the state of Negeri Sembilan until 1986, when Iqbal moved about two hours away to the secluded Sungai Manggis compound along Manggis River Village Road. Hambali, whom neighbors and friends knew as a humble and devout traveling businessman, joined him there in 1992.

Iqbal’s wife, Fatimah Zaharan, described her husband in an interview as a freelance lecturer who sometimes preached that Muslims had a duty to defend their religion anywhere it came under threat.

“It’s all from the book,” said Zaharan, the mother of nine. “If the book says it is necessary to have a holy war, then he will teach that. He never preached a word outside the holy Koran.”

When he preached, Hambali, who claims to have met Bin Laden several times, would urge his followers to go to Indonesia’s Molucca Islands to fight Christians or to Afghanistan to support the Taliban, said one who attended.

In October 1999, after Suharto had been ousted as president, Bashir and Sungkar returned to Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital. Two days after arriving, Sungkar suffered a heart attack and died. Bashir assumed his role as spiritual leader.

Today, Bashir is wanted in Malaysia, where authorities say he provided his followers with the ideological rationale for engaging in jihad. In Indonesia, he recently proclaimed Bin Laden to be a “true Muslim fighter” and told one interviewer that the Sept. 11 attacks were the result of a Jewish conspiracy carried out with the help of former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger.

Indonesian police questioned him for two days last month before releasing him.

Iqbal was arrested in June by Malaysian intelligence police while preaching to students in a distant village. He was detained in the first wave of arrests targeting Islamic militants after the May bank heist. His wife flatly denies charges that Iqbal is connected to any terrorist plots.

Hambali left Malaysia at the end of 2000, shortly before simultaneous bomb blasts struck two dozen churches in Indonesia on Christmas Eve, killing 19 and injuring 100. Witnesses implicated him in one of the bombings, and Indonesian police issued a warrant for his arrest a year ago. He is also wanted by Malaysia and Singapore for his alleged role in terrorist operations, including the Singapore bomb plot.

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Fineman reported from Sungai Manggis and Paddock from Jakarta, Indonesia. Sari Sudarsono of The Times’ Jakarta Bureau contributed to this report.