Iraq Connection?

A massive explosion from a car bomb destroyed a night club at the Kuta Beach resort on the tourist islandof Bali in Indonesia on October 12, 2002, sparking a devastating fire  that killed at least 182 peopleand wounded more than 300 -- many of them foreigners, mainly Australians, Germans, Canadians, Britons, andSwedes.  The Indonesian National Police Chief, General Da'i Bachtiar, told the media that  theexplosion came from a Kijang, a jeep-like vehicle, and called it the worst act of terrorism in Indonesia'shistory.  According to local officials, a second bomb exploded near the island's US consular office, but there were no casualties.  At the time of recording of these comments, no organisation has claimedresponsibility for the explosions.

All indicators received till now point to  its being a terrorist strike, most probably connected tothe first anniversary of the beginning of the US air strikes in Afghanistan on October 7 and the preparationsfor a possible US-UK intervention in Iraq to have President Saddam Hussein overthrown.  There have beentwo terrorist strikes almost coinciding with the first anniversary.  The first was the ramming by a boatfilled with explosives against a French super tanker off Yemen on October 6 and the second the explosions inBali, which have come five days after the anniversary.  A terrorist organisation of Aden is reported tohave claimed responsibility for the strike against the tanker, but its claim is yet to be verified.

While the Yemen incident was apparently a suicide attack, it is not clear whether the Bali explosions weretoo.  For many months now, Indonesia has been developing as a major hub of S.E.Asia-based Islamicterrorist groups with two different motivations--- a pan-Islamic one aiming to achieve a caliphate in S.E.Asiacovering southern Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, southern Philippines and Brunei and ananti-Christian one targeting the Christian community, many of whose members happen to be ethnic Chinese.

The developments in Indonesia have an interesting parallel in  the pan-Islamic and anti-Christianmotivations operating in tandem in Pakistan and the pan-Islamic and anti-Hindu motivations similarly operatingin tandem in India.

The pan-Islamic organisations of Pakistan, which are members of Osama bin Laden's International IslamicFront For Jehad Against the US and Israel -- the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HUJI),the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) -- seek to achieve an Islamic Caliphate in South Asiaand look upon Hinduism as a corrupting influence on Islam not only in Pakistan, but also in Indonesia. Theyblame Hinduism for making Islam soft in Indonesia.

Against this background, the selection of Bali, with its predominantly Hindu population, for this mostdevastating terrorist strike is disquieting.  It also needs to be noted that President MegawatiSukarnoputri's mother was a Muslim of Balinese Hindu origin and before her election as the President, some ofthe Islamic extremist elements in Indonesia had referred to this while expressing their reservations over herbecoming the President of the country.

However, there is so far no evidence to show that the explosions had anything to do with the predominantlyHindu nature of the Island or President Megawati's family background.  Bali seems to have been chosen forthe terrorist strike mainly because security precautions there were very relaxed since it was not consideredby the Indonesian intelligence and security agencies as a likely trouble spot.   In an assessment preparedin April last, they had identified six security "trouble spots" in Indonesia from the point of viewof the fight against Islamic terrorism -- Aceh, Maluku, Papua, Sampit in Central Kalimantan, Poso in CentralSulawesi and West Timor.  According to Indonesian intelligence officials,  foreign terrorist groups had used Poso as a training ground in recent years.  The attraction of Bali to the terrorists alsoarises from the fact that it gets a large number of Australian and Western tourists.

Amongst the foreign nationals who fought in the International Islamic Front as members of  itsPakistani components were American Muslims (mostly Afro-Americans), nationals/residents  of West Europeancountries, Thais, Malaysians, Singaporeans, who projected themselves as Malays from Malaysia,  andIndonesians. Their total number was  estimated to be about 200.  Practically all of them had beenrecruited by  HUM,  HUJI and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) teams, which went to these countries posing aspreachers of the Tablighi Jamaat (TJ), brought to Pakistan and trained in the various madrasas with fundsprovided by the TJ and then taken to Afghanistan to get jehad inoculation.

In addition to those mentioned above, there were  about 400 foreign students recruited by the HUM, theHUJI and the LET  from Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, who were studying at the various madrasas inPakistan prior to their being inducted into the jehad.  Of these, 190 were being trained in jehad in themadrasas of  Sindh, 151 in the  madrasas of  Punjab and 59 in those of   theNorth-West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Of the 190 being trained in Sindh, 86 were from Malaysia, 82 from Thailand and 22 from Indonesia. Of the151 being trained in the Punjab, 61 were from Malaysia, 49 from Thailand and 41 from Indonesia.  Of the59 being trained in the NWFP, 21 were from Indonesia, 20 from Malaysia and 18 from Thailand.  Thus, therewere  167 Malaysians, 149 Thais and 84 Indonesians being trained in the various madrasas of Pakistan.

Reports of the  fighting earlier this year  by the dregs of the Taliban, Al Qaeda and othercomponents of the International Islamic Front against the US troops (Operation Anaconda)  brought tolight the participation of trained Indonesian jehadis in the fight against the US troops.  It is learntthat these jehadis were trained in the training camp of the LET in the Muridke area in Punjab  from wherethey were sent to Eastern Afghanistan to participate in the fighting against the US troops. According to the"News" of Islamabad (March 15, 2002) one of the dead bodies recovered by the pro-US Afghan troopsafter the  fighting in the Shahi Kot area had an Indonesian identity card.

Evidence available so far indicates that while the terrorists  from Malaysia and possibly Singaporewere trained in the headquarters of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) in the Binori madrasa complex in Karachi, thosefrom Indonesia were trained in the Muridke complex of the LET, near Lahore.  The HUM had always beentraining the recruits from Southern Philippines and Myanmar, in addition to those from Xinjiang,Chechnya,Dagestan and the Central Asian Republics.  The HUJI trains those from Bangladesh.  Before October 7,2001, the training camps of the HUM and the HUJI were located in Eastern Afghanistan. It is not known wherethey have been shifted since then. However, it is known that in the past they had used the infrastructure ofthe Tablighi Jamaat in Raiwind in Punjab for training purposes.

Since July last , unconfirmed rumours have been circulating in Karachi and elsewhere about a large numberof members of the Al Qaeda, including some leaders such as Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama's No.2, having escaped toBangladesh, with the help of the HUJI, which has an active branch in Bangladesh assisted by the Bangladeshimilitary-intelligence establishment.  What seems to have happened and is still happening is that manyBangladeshis, Arakanese, Malays from Singapore and Malaysia, Indonesians and Filipinos, who had fought asmembers of the HUM, the HUJI and the LET against the Northern Alliance and subsequently against the US inAfghanistan, have been finding their way, with the help of the HUJI and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) ofBangladesh, which is a member of the ruling coalition in Dhaka, into Bangladesh.  Unconfirmed reportsalso mentioned the presence in Bangladesh  of  Riduan Isamuddin of Indonesia, better known asHambali, the 36-year-old cleric  wanted by the U.S. and four South-East Asian countries as the terroristmastermind of the Asian operations of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network and the guiding force  ofS.E.Asian terrorism.  It is likely that some of these terrorist dregs have since sneaked back to theircountries of origin.

The Bali explosions probably mark the return to Indonesia of the some of the dregs from Afghanistan andPakistan.  The talk in the Pakistani madrasas has been that from now onwards the members of theInternational Islamic Front would be carrying out a well-orchestrated series of terrorist attacks againstWestern nationals and interests in different parts of the world as warning signals to pre-empt US-UK militarystrikes against Iraq.  The attacks on the French tanker off Yemen and in Bali were apparently part ofthis planned series and more are likely as the US and the UK go ahead with their preparations for an attack onIraq for the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein.

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently,Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai)