Indonesian police hold militant cleric

9.25am

JAKARTA/BALI - Indonesian police arrested a militant Muslim cleric yesterday hours after the government issued emergency anti-terror decrees aimed at giving authorities wide powers in the hunt for the perpetrators of last weekend's Bali bombings.

Abu Bakar Bashir has been linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and a regional group of militants in Southeast Asia. He denies any connection, saying he is just an Islamic teacher.

"He's been captured and arrested. Temporarily, he's still in the hospital in Solo. He's sick and tightly guarded," National Police spokesman Saleh Saaf said.

Neighbouring countries and the West have pressed Indonesia for months to move against Bashir, although Australia warned on Saturday his arrest might provoke a backlash from hardline groups.

Witnesses said about 300 of the cleric's supporters, mostly Islamic teenagers from schools set up by Bashir, protested outside the hospital but later dispersed.

Bashir, who had been summoned by police for questioning in Jakarta on Saturday, entered hospital suddenly on Friday. Aides and doctors said he would be unable to travel to face questions over a bombing in the country in 2000.

Police have said he was not being summoned over the Bali attack.
Saleh Saaf said there was "an order letter of capture and arrest" for the cleric, without elaborating.

A police official in Solo said Bashir was being held for 24 hours and his status would be reviewed on Sunday.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Bashir's arrest could lead to a backlash from Muslim radicals, warning this was something "to be very wary of."

But Defence Minister Matori Abdul Jalil played down such concerns.

"Radical Muslim groups in Indonesia are a minority so let's not worry about a backlash or revenge," he told reporters in Bali.

More than 180 people, including an estimated 103 Australians, died in last Sunday's blasts outside a Bali nightclub packed with foreign tourists. Hundreds more were wounded in the carnage.

As fears grow of more bomb attacks in the region following a number of deadly blasts in the Philippines, the United States and Australia issued fresh warnings about threats to Westerners.

On Saturday, Australia said it had received intelligence that parts of the Indonesian capital might be bombed in attacks aimed at Westerners. It urged its citizens to avoid certain areas.

"The nature of the specific threats in Jakarta is the threat of bomb attacks in those certain suburbs against Westerners," Downer told the Australian Broadcasting Commission.

The State Department also issued a new warning of possible attacks against Washington's interests across the sprawling archipelago and urged its citizens not to visit.

London extended its travel warnings to much of Southeast Asia, urging Britons to exercise "extreme caution in public places."

The United States, Australia and Britain have also advised their citizens to consider leaving Indonesia and have begun evacuating non-essential embassy staff and family members.

With Indonesia under intense pressure to clamp down on Islamic militants, President Megawati Sukarnoputri signed emergency decrees just before midnight on Friday giving authorities wide powers to combat terrorism and investigate the Bali atrocity.

"Police can detain anyone strongly suspected of acts of terrorism based on initial evidence for as long as seven days," the document said. For that and for longer detentions the threshold of evidence required would be lowered from existing laws and the results of intelligence operations could be used.

"Any person found intentionally using violence or a threat of violence that would create terror or unrest among the masses...faces the death penalty," the decree said.

The formal signing and subsequent announcement of the regulations came much later on Friday than expected, suggesting possible dissent from some cabinet members and key politicians.


Foreign intelligence officials say Bashir is a leader in the al Qaeda-linked regional Jemaah Islamiah network, blamed for planning attacks throughout Southeast Asia. Some have tied it to the Bali attack.

Defense Minister Matori is the most senior Indonesian official to link al Qaeda to the bombing and repeated that view in Bali on Saturday.

"I believe the Bali bombing's actor is al Qaeda. Much intelligence information that I received (suggested) that it was done by al Qaeda."

Police said they were examining Bashir in relation to statements by Omar al-Faruq, an Arab seized in Indonesia in June and handed over to the United States.

A self-confessed al Qaeda member, al-Faruq reportedly also admitted to involvement in a string of planned attacks, ranging from bombings in Jakarta to failed attempts to attack various embassies in Southeast Asia and assassinate Megawati when she was vice president.

No one has claimed responsibility for the nightclub attack in Bali but 95 law-enforcement personnel from seven countries are working on "Operation Alliance" run jointly by Indonesia and Australia.

"We've had several meetings with the forensics team from the Australian Federal Police and we will review the investigations at the bomb site on Monday and Tuesday," Made Mangku Pastika, the head of the joint probe, told reporters.

In Bali, the grim work of identifying the victims continued. A total of 68 international victim-identification experts are involved, Superintendent Andrew Tefler from the South Australian police force said on Saturday.

When asked how many bodies he thought would be identified per day given the level of expertise, he said: "I hope at least two to three but it is very difficult to predict."

Many of the remains are badly burned or dismembered because of the massive force of the main blast and the fires that followed that explosion police say was a car bomb.

The remains of some victims are unlikely to ever be identified, officials have said.

- REUTERS

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