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Sydney Morning Herald, 25 Sept., 2001
S-E Asian Muslims think locally, mostly act moderately
By Louise Williams
The man who commands Indonesia's "jihad warriors" counts his proudest moments as the two years he spent fighting alongside Islamic forces in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. Now, says 39-year-old Ustad Ja'far Umar Thalib, he is ready to counter any US strike on Afghanistan with retaliatory attacks against American targets and civilians inside Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation. As a close American ally, Australian targets and civilians may also be at risk.
But the wiry young Indonesian men who train with batons and ceremonial swords in the hidden, red earth clearings of tropical Java are worlds away from the sophisticated terrorist network which carried out the US suicide hijackings or the battle-hardened Taliban forces the US is targeting.
Indonesia's Laskar Jihad, or Militia of the Holy War, boasts tens of thousands of jihad warriors. In its campaign against Christians in the remote Maluku islands, thousands have died in close combat and there have been sporadic efforts to enforce Islamic law. The group is also thought to have been behind a string of deadly church bombings across Java.
The profile of Islam in Indonesia, however, is more complex than the statistics would suggest. Some 87 per cent of the 210 million people are Muslims. Islam came to Indonesia with the Arab seafaring traders and while some regions, such as Aceh, embraced the religion in its strictest form, most Indonesian Muslims take a moderate, inclusive view of religion and have rejected symbols such as the veiling of women.
Any anti-US, or anti-Western, movement in Indonesia would need to attract Indonesia's more moderate Muslims to pose a serious security threat, according to Mr Greg Fealy, an Indonesia expert at the Australian National University.
Mr Fealy and other commentators expect demonstrations and minor sporadic attacks on Americans, such as the recent hounding of US tourists in central Java, but believe Indonesians would stop short of targeting American or Australian civilians.
However, Indonesia is already dealing with a crippling breakdown in law and order and another flashpoint will just make the situation worse, said another analyst. The weakness of the central government, plus the pockets of Muslim radicals, means it could be used as a transit point or sanctuary for Islamic terrorists.
The same can be said for the southern Philippines, where Government troops have failed to reclaim territory controlled by the heavily armed and well-funded Abu Sayyaf, a band of zealots who kidnap and extort in the name of Islam. International Islamic networks have failed to mobilise significant mainstream support in Indonesia, largely because of the local nature of religious disputes.
Laskar Jihad represents only a minuscule proportion of Muslims. The most violent disputes, such as the ongoing separatist struggle in Aceh and the simmering Maluku conflict, are about control of local economic resources and political power.
Elsewhere in the region small radical Muslim groups are likely to support any anti-US action. As well as the handful of Muslim groups in the southern Philippines there are also small, armed groups in parts of Malaysia and southern Thailand.
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