Indonesian police arrest head of Islamic 'school' (AP)

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Police in Indonesia arrested the headmaster of an Islamic boarding school Friday after a man there died earlier this week, reportedly while trying to teach students how to make homemade bombs.

Authorities believe the school — set up nearly a decade ago in Sumba island town of Bima but never opened to the public — was actually a militant training camp, National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Ketut Untung Yoga said.

Immediately after Monday's blast, school officials and students stood guard in front of the building, preventing security forces from entering. At the end of the 48-hour standoff, police discovered explosives, dozens of machetes, air rifles, Molotov cocktails and jihadi books and videos.

Documents seized from the building indicated it belonged to Jemaah Anshorut Tauhid, a hard-line group founded by convicted radical Muslim cleric, Abu Bakar Bashir, Yoga said.

The headmaster, Abrori Ali, was arrested Friday in his parents' house about 18 miles (30 kilometers) away, he said, and seven other people are in police custody for questioning.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, has been battling terrorists since 2002 when al-Qaida-linked militants attacked two nightclubs on Bali island, killing 202 people, mostly foreigners.

In recent months, security forces have become the main target of extremists in Indonesia. Militants say they want to punish soldiers and police for taking part in the so-called war against terrorism.

Hundreds of Islamist militants have been arrested, tried and jailed.

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Indonesian police surround Islamic school (AFP)

MATARAM, Indonesia (AFP) – Indonesian police were locked in a tense stand off with armed students at an Islamic boarding school for a third day on Wednesday, after a bomb blast there killed a suspected terrorist.

Police say the school is linked to radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who was jailed for 15 years last month for funding a terrorist group that was planning attacks against Westerners and political leaders.

Security forces arrived at the school at Bima town, West Nusa Tenggara province, late Monday after a home-made bomb exploded in one of the rooms, killing a man suspected of being a Philippine-trained bomb expert.

Local media have quoted police as saying the unidentified man was suspected of instructing students on how to make bombs when one of the devices exploded.

After the blast, hundreds of students and teachers armed with knives and swords blocked the entrance, preventing police and soldiers from investigating the incident.

"We've been trying to enter the school to carry out our investigations by being persuasive, but the students are still blocking us," provincial police spokesman Sukarman Husein told AFP.

"If persuasion doesn't work we'll have to enter the school with full force some time later today."

He said about 200 police and troops were deployed around the school but were keeping their distance so as not to aggravate the students, who were armed with traditional swords.

Eight people were in custody in connection to the incident, Husein said.

Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali said the police had to take strong action if the school was linked to extremist groups.

"If anyone related to the bomb blasts is found to be a member of a radical group, then the boarding school must be closed and the students must be re-guided," the Jakarta Globe newspaper quoted Suryadharma as saying.

He said the school had resisted government attempts to moderate its teachings in the past.

Police are understood to be wary of triggering a violent Islamist backlash if they crack down too heavily on the school, despite its apparent involvement in bomb-making and religious extremism.

One of the school's leaders was reportedly arrested last year in connection with the terror group Bashir was convicted of funding.

And a student called Saban Arohmah was arrested last month for killing a police officer with a sword slash to the neck, according to the Kompas news website.

"From his testimony, the student admitted that the premeditated murder was part of a jihad (holy war) mission," Kompas quoted Husein as saying.

The killer reportedly belonged to Bashir's Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid, an extremist group campaigning to bring Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority state, under strict Islamic law.

Indonesia is a pluralist democracy and most of its 200 million Muslims are moderates.

But it has struggled to deal with a radical fringe of Islamist jihadis who have carried out numerous bloody attacks including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed more than 200 people.

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3 Indonesian militants get prison for terror plot (AP)

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Three Indonesians radicalized by the teachings of a firebrand Muslim cleric were sentenced Tuesday to six years in prison for involvement in a terror plot.

A Jakarta court found Muhammad Iqbal, Helmi Wardani and Kurnia Widodo guilty of violating anti-terrorism laws by making bombs and exploding them in trial runs for a terrorist attack. It said they gleaned their bomb-making knowledge from the Internet.

Presiding Judge Mustofa said the men were influenced by the preaching of Aman Abdurrahman, a radical cleric who was sentenced to nine years in prison in December for involvement in a militant training camp in westernmost Aceh province.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, has battled militants with links to al-Qaida since 2002, when extremists bombed a nightclub district on Bali island, killing 202 people, most of them foreigners. A security crackdown since then has seen hundreds of militants killed or captured and convicted.

Mustofa said the three men, all in their thirties, were highly educated with no history of militancy until becoming radicalized through their participation in Islamic study at a mosque in West Java that was a base for Abdurrahman.

He said they planned to target police and local officials whom they considered their main enemy because of the government's support for the U.S.-led fight against terrorism.

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Malaysia arrests Indonesian terror suspect (AFP)

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – Malaysia has re-arrested an Indonesian who slipped back into the country after being deported for harbouring one of Southeast Asia's most wanted terror suspects, police said Friday.

Agus Salim, from Indonesia's Sumatra island, was detained on Monday at the restaurant where he works in the southern city of Johor Baru for entering the country under a false name, a senior police official said.

Salim was arrested in 2009 under Malaysia's Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows for indefinite detention without trial.

He was suspected of helping hide Mas Selamat bin Kastari, the alleged head of the Singapore cell of regional terror outfit Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), which has links with Al-Qaeda.

Mas Selamat escaped from a Singaporean high-security prison in 2008 and got into Malaysia, where he was recaptured in 2009.

Salim was deported back to Indonesia in 2009, months after his arrest, but police found out that he re-entered Malaysia under a new name, an immigration offence, several months ago, the police official said.

"We have arrested him in 2009 because of his involvement in harbouring Mas Selamat in Johor Baru," the official told AFP. "We are sure he is (still) trying very hard to assist the JI group."

The official said Salim was working at the same restaurant where he had been employed before his 2009 arrest.

The New Straits Times reported, quoting unnamed sources, that the 34-year-old was believed to be a JI "sleeper agent" who followed instructions to supply logistics and other help to JI members in Malaysia.

Separately, another Indonesian, Abdul Haris Syuhadi, was held under the ISA last weekend at his home in central Selangor state for allegedly recruiting members for JI.

The 63-year-old textile seller is alleged to have been spreading JI ideology and actively recruiting members for the terror group since 2002, according to police.

JI is blamed for a string of attacks in the region, including the 2002 Bali bombings in which 202 people were killed, many of them foreign tourists.

Malaysia regularly uses the ISA to detain mostly terror suspects but also alleged people smugglers and opposition activists despite criticism from human rights groups, which have urged the country to charge criminals in court.

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Indonesian police seek 15 suicide bombs (AFP)

CIREBON, Indonesia (AFP) – Indonesian police said Thursday they were searching for 15 suicide vests prepared by a terrorist cell that carried out an attack on a police mosque last month, wounding 30 people.

Information gathered from suspects detained in relation to the attack suggested another 15 vest bombs were circulating somewhere in the massive archipelago, police said.

"We are still looking for 15 bombs," police spokesman Anton Bachrul Alam told reporters in Cirebon, West Java, where the mosque was attacked on April 15.

Twenty-two suicide vests had already been seized as part of the ongoing investigation, he said.

Police also released a video made by the bomber, Muhammad Syarif, 32, whom they allege was linked to several militant networks including Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid, founded by radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir.

"I hope this bomb will kill many friends of the devil. God is with me," he said in the clip.

He said he was inspired by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was killed by US forces in Pakistan shortly after the Cirebon mosque bombing.

"So many mujahedeen (holy warriors) were killed and arrested by the police as they were fighting to uphold the religion of Allah. Those who kill these mujahedeen are friends of the devil," he said.

Police paraded before the media several detained suspects linked to Syarif, who was killed instantly when he set off his device in a mosque at a police compound during Friday prayers.

The arrests come as part of investigations into a series of recent incidents including a Good Friday plot to blow up a Jakarta church and a book bomb campaign targeting Muslim moderates and counter-terrorism officials.

No one was killed in those incidents.

Officials have warned that local extremists could carry out attacks to avenge the killing of bin Laden.

But they say the Al-Qaeda leader's death will have little effect on Indonesian jihadis, who operate independently to the late Saudi extremist's global terror network.

Indonesia has won praise for rounding up hundreds of Islamist militants since 2002 when local radicals detonated bombs on Bali island, killing 202 people, mainly Westerners.

But analysts say indigenous terror networks are adapting to police crackdowns on high-profile groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah, which was blamed for the Bali bombing.

A report released by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute on Thursday provided fresh insight into how radicalism is spreading among inmates in Indonesia's notoriously corrupt prisons.

It said convicted terrorists were being allowed to plot and harden their networks "to better perform their jihad duties".

Police spokesman Alam said members of the Cirebon group had received doctrinal training from Aman Abdurrahman, a twice convicted terrorist and radical ideologue who is allowed to preach to fellow jail inmates.

"The group had been indoctrinated to destroy, among other things, mosques built by people who didn't obey Allah's law. The police mosque was one," he said.

"They will battle infidels who don't obey Allah's law... including the police."

Senior anti-terror police have publicly called for an overhaul of the prison system but Justice and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar rejected the Australian study, saying there were no grounds for concern.

"Terrorism is everywhere... Don't believe the research. It is a provocation. Where is the proof?" he said, joking that the claims in the report made him "dizzy".

Experts on Islamist militancy in Indonesia, an ostensibly secular democracy with some 200 million Muslims, say extremists are trying to destabilise the government to advance their demands for Islamic law.

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