Ba'asyir Held for Al-Qaeda Plot Links

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Indonesian police announced the arrest Monday of a top radical Islamist preacher accused of backing Al-Qaeda linked extremists who were plotting a wave of bomb attacks in Jakarta. 

Abu Bakar Ba'asyir is accused of involvement in the plans allegedly being hatched by a militant cell headed by the slain leader of Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah and of having an “active role” in their training. 

National police spokesman Edward Aritonang said “Al-Qaeda in Aceh” was plotting to bomb embassies and hotels in Jakarta and an independence day celebration to be attended by Indonesia’s president next week. 

Ba'asyir’s arrest comes after a series of police raids which have netted over 100 terror suspects nationwide following the February discovery of a training camp for extremists in the province of Aceh. 

The bespectacled Ba'asyir, 71, is known for his hardline rhetoric and has been accused of providing spiritual leadership to Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a claim he denies.  He served almost 26 months for conspiracy over the 2002 attacks by JI on Bali nightspots that killed 202 people, mostly Australians, before being cleared and released in 2006.

Ba'asyir was arrested Monday in West Java and taken to Jakarta police headqarters, where he told reporters: “This is engineered by America.” “We’re still finding out what the police charges are before stating our position on this matter — if they’re related to terror activities, what exactly they are,” his lawyer Achmad Cholid told AFP. 

In raids in West Java on Saturday, police had arrested five suspects, seized explosive materials in a bomb factory as well as a vehicle belonging to a French national which they suspected could be used as a car bomb. 

Police said the Al-Qaeda cell was formed under the leadership of Dulmatin, who was considered one of the masterminds of the 2002 carnage in Bali, and who was killed in March after the discovery of the training camp. 

Aritonang said the military training in Aceh, the series of “meticulously arranged and well organised” planned attacks, and the discovery of the bomb laboratory all had a “very clear link” to Ba'asyir. 

He said the group had been planning a series of attacks, including using car bombs, on at least two embassies, several international hotels and Jakarta police headquarters.  Police said the militants also planned to strike an independence day celebration on August 17 to be attended by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who revealed at the weekend that a plot against him had been foiled.