Indonesian Clerics Condemn bin Laden Sea Burial

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Indonesia’s top Islamic body on Tuesday condemned the sea burial of Osama bin Laden, as radicals promised a day of mass prayer to mourn the Al-Qaeda leader’s death at the hands of US special forces.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s office issued a statement which neither applauded nor condemned the killing of the world’s most wanted terrorist and alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

“The president has certainly heard the news about Osama’s death and we carefully listened to the speech of US President Obama,” presidential spokesman Julian Pasha said in the first official Indonesian reaction to the news.

“The president said Indonesia has a common spirit with other nations in fighting against terrorism.” Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation and has been hit by multiple terror attacks including the 2002 Bali bombing which killed more than 200 people, mainly Western tourists.

Its US-backed counter-terrorism force has killed and arrested scores of Islamist militants since 9/11, including leaders of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional network who had links to Al-Qaeda.

But the Southeast Asian archipelago of 240 million people — 80 percent of whom are Muslims — remains home to a radical fringe with sympathies for bin Laden’s campaign of global jihad, or “holy war”, against the West.

The Indonesia Ulema Council (MUI), the country’s highest Islamic body, slammed the US decision to bury bin Laden at sea. “A Muslim, whatever his profession, even a criminal, their rites must be respected. There must be a prayer and the body should be wrapped in white cloth before being buried in the earth, not at sea,” MUI chief Amidhan said.

“Many others have condemned it, especially as it was done with extraordinary hatred against him.” The United States says bin Laden received Muslim rites but his body was “eased” into the Arabian Sea so no one could turn his grave into a shrine.

A violent vigilante group known as the Islamic Defenders Front announced plans to hold a “mass prayer for bin Laden” in Jakarta on Wednesday. Mourners were invited to “express gratitude to the late martyr Sheikh Osama bin Laden”.

Yudhoyono’s coalition government, which includes the conservative Muslim Prosperous Justice Party, has failed to ban such groups despite their frequent violent attacks on minorities and moderates.