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Indonesia cleric warns US over Iraq attack
( 2002-09-25 17:20 ) (7 )

An Indonesian Islamic cleric accused by neighbouring states of being involved in regional terror warned the United States on Wednesday that Indonesian Muslims would unite in condemning any attack on Iraq.

Speaking in an interview at an Islamic boarding school he helped set up in the central Java town of Solo, Abu Bakar Bashir said American military action could also cause trouble for the Indonesian government if it gave any support to the US position.

While there might be street protests, Bashir said he did not believe an attack would spark chaos in the world's most populous Muslim country, under the microscope in the war on terror and facing pressure to arrest Muslim clerics such as Bashir.

"The Indonesian Muslim community would reject this totally because they would regard an attack (on Iraq) as despotic, without valid foundations," said Bashir, 65, as young girls, their heads veiled, walked past his office to class.

"The impact on (Megawati) would depend on the government. If Megawati's government supports America 100 percent then I think she will suffer. If it's wise, maybe it will be ok," added the cleric, dressed in white flowing robes.

Bashir did not elaborate, apart from adding that, according to Islamic sharia law, a woman should not be a head of state.

Some 85 percent of Indonesia's 210 million people are Muslim, with most practising a more liberal version of Islam compared to that found in the Middle East.

TRICKY SITUATION

Nevertheless, many analysts predict the secular Megawati, her eye on a Muslim constituency increasingly sceptical about US intentions toward the Muslim world, would find herself in a tricky situation should Washington attack, and be forced to quickly condemn it. No analysts, however, see military action galvanising Muslim opinion to the extent it could trigger Megawati's downfall.

Both moderate and radical Muslim leaders in Indonesia have warned Washington against attacking Iraq.

Sporting his trademark wispy silver beard and large reading glasses, Bashir also took the United States to task for considering labelling a regional militant network called Jemaah Islamiah, a terrorist organisation. Malaysia and Singapore have accused Bashir of being a key leader of Jemaah Islamiah.

Speaking in Hanoi on Tuesday, Matthew Daley, US assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific, stepped up the pressure on Jakarta by directly linking Bashir to the group, calling it "the Abu Bakar Bashir organisation", apparently to differentiate it from the literal translation of Jemaah Islamiah which is Islamic community.

He said the United States was considering calling Jemaah Islamiah a terrorist group.

"That is a false statement and is not at all based on the facts. When they refer to Jemaah Islamiah, as an organisation like that there is none," said Bashir, who has repeatedly denied any links to regional or international terrorism.

Jemaah Islamiah has been accused of seeking to bomb Western targets as part of a jihad, or holy war, intended to establish an independent Islamic state across the region.

Some Southeast Asian governments have linked it to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, Washington's prime suspect in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. On Wednesday, Bashir called bin Laden "one of God's soldiers".

GROWING CYNICISM

But with cynicism toward Washington growing among moderate Indonesian Muslims over US policy on Iraq and in the wake of an article in Time magazine that linked Bashir to terror, analysts said Megawati needed to tread carefully before arresting Bashir.

Bashir spends much of his time at this school for 2,000 students in Solo, 500 km (310 miles) east of Jakarta.

"If they arrest Abu Bakar Bashir without clear and strong evidence...it will create a new solidarity of Islam here and generate hatred toward the United States," said Fachry Ali, an expert on politics and Islam at a Jakarta-based thinktank.

"The public would see Mega as a US subordinate."

Bashir said the authorities might feel pressured to arrest him, although he had no inkling this was imminent.

He denied the Time magazine report, which said he had links to an Arab arrested in Indonesia in June, who was allegedly a senior al Qaeda operative in Southeast Asia.

Bashir added that he had encouraged Muslims to fight Christians on the battlefield in places where Muslims were under attack, adding it was possible some of those, whom he called his "listeners", had done so in places such as Bosnia.

He said he had heard some followers had gone to Indonesia's Moluccas islands to fight, although he did not know any names. The Moluccas has been ravaged by Muslim-Christian violence.