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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Hacking: UK police say terror was bigger priority (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) – At a stormy hearing on Britain's phone hacking scandal, top serving and retired policemen told skeptical lawmakers on Tuesday they had been too busy trying to prevent terrorism to investigate the abuse adequately.

Lawmakers reacted with ridicule, disbelief and open hostility to testimony by senior Scotland Yard officers about their handling of an affair that has led to the closure of a leading newspaper.

All the officers pointed the finger at News International, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp media group and publisher of the now-defunct News of the World weekly at the center of the scandal, for obstructing their investigation.

The MPs did not contest that assertion but queried why police were not more determined about getting to the truth.

"All of this sounds like Clouseau rather than Columbo," said Keith Vaz, a Labour party politician who chairs the Home Affairs Select Committee.

London's Metropolitan Police has been under fire for failing to follow up inquiries into phone hacking by the top-selling Sunday tabloid after its royalty correspondent was jailed in 2007 for conspiring with a private investigator to listen in to the voicemails of figures in the royal household.

One serving and two former senior officers denied accepting money from journalists and the current head of the Scotland Yard investigation, Sue Akers, pledged to widen the probe beyond the News of the World if new information came to light suggesting other media companies were involved.

"We will go where the evidence leads us," she told the MPs.

HOSTILITY

Much of the legislators' hostility was reserved for John Yates, an assistant commissioner, who said he was "99 percent certain" he had been the victim of phone hacking but denied a suggestion that this had intimidated him.

Yates has been criticized for concluding in 2009 there was not enough evidence to reopen the London force's original investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World after claims the original probe had not gone far enough.

As lawmakers took it in turns to take a pop at his decision and express their derision, Yates admitted he had probably done only the minimum work required before his flawed decision.

Yates said he was never contacted by News International about his private life or put under any pressure by the newspaper group on that front.

"I categorically state that was not the case," he said. But he admitted corruption in the Met was inevitable.

"...We're an organization of 50,000 people, we have always said from time immemorial that some of those 50,000 people will be corrupt and accept payments," he said.

The phone hacking scandal has spread from celebrities to victims of crime, casting a shadow over News Corp's operations and raising questions about ties between reporters and police officers, some of whom appear to have provided confidential telephone numbers to people working for some newspapers.

Peter Clarke, the former head of the counter-terrorist branch who was in charge of the original investigation, attacked News International for impeding his detectives.

"News International were not cooperative at the time. If there had been any meaningful cooperation at the time we wouldn't be here today. It's as simple as that."

He said he had run a narrow investigation because of pressure on resources, because he did not want the probe compromised by leaks from potential victims, and because he believed it would put an end to the hacking practice quickly.

There were 70 live anti-terrorism investigations being run at that time, the aftermath of al Qaeda attacks on London transport in July 2005 that killed 52 people.

He said the hacking probe was lower in priority than an inquiry where there was a threat to life. The only way the police could have done more was through an exhaustive analysis of the 11,000 pages of evidence, he said.

"I took the decision this didn't justify it," he told the committee but agreed he suspected News of the World of greater wrongdoing. "I was as certain as I could be they had something to hide."

NOTHING TO HIDE

Andy Hayman, the officer who oversaw the initial hacking inquiry and the man who led the inquiry into the 2005 bombings, obtained a job writing regular columns for News of the World stable-mate, The Times, after he retired.

During an extraordinary exchange with the committee which had them shaking their heads in disbelief and laughing in equal measure, he dismissed suggestions that it had been improper for him to meet News International executives for the occasional meal while the phone hacking probe had been taking place.

He said meeting News International was part of his job and said claims about "cozy or candle-lit dinners" were "absolute rubbish." One MP suggested he was seen by the public as a "dodgy geezer" before asking if he had ever taken a bribe.

"Good God. Absolutely not. I can't believe you suggested that. I can't let you get away with that," he said angrily.

Sue Akers acknowledged the police service would pay a heavy price if it did not do a better job this time.

"I don't doubt if we don't get this right it (the Met's reputation) will continue to be damaged. I guarantee it will be a thorough inquiry," she said.

(Editing by Robert Woodward)

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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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Wheelchair bomber attacks Iraqi police station (AP)

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Qassim Abdul-zahra, Associated Press – Sun Jun 26, 11:35 am ET

BAGHDAD – A suicide bomber in a wheelchair blew himself up at the entrance to a police station north of the capital Baghdad on Sunday, killing three people and wounding 18, officials said.

Two police officers were killed and 10 injured in Tarmiyah, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Baghdad, two police officers and one medical official said.

The head of the Tarmiyah city council, Qassim Khalifa, told The Associated Press that it was not clear whether the bomber was really handicapped or using the wheelchair as a way to deflect attention from security personnel.

The bomber went to the police station claiming to need a letter from the police certifying he'd been maimed in a terror attack, Khalifa said. Iraqis who have been disabled from a bombing or shooting can receive compensation from the government if their injuries are documented.

"Police inspected him but not very carefully as he was handicapped or pretending to be handicapped, so they let him go inside the police reception area where the blast occurred," Khalifa said.

In Baghdad, security authorities were out in force to protect Shiite pilgrims converging from around the country to commemorate the death of Imam Moussa al-Kadhim, a revered Shiite figure. Pilgrims traditionally walk to the twin-domed shrine in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Kazimiyah, where al-Kadhim is buried.

Predominantly Sunni militants often target the pilgrims as they are walking to and from the shrine from cities and towns across Iraq. Sunday morning a sniper shot and wounded two Iraqi soldiers near the village of Wahda, a mixed Shiite-Sunni village 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of the capital, said a police and hospital official. The soldiers were manning one of the checkpoints set up to protect pilgrims as they walk to the shrine.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information.

Meanwhile, an Iraqi court has sentenced the wife of a slain al-Qaida leader to 20 years in prison on terrorism-related charges, an Iraqi judicial spokesman said.

Hasna Ali Yahya, the Yemeni wife of Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was convicted last Thursday, according to Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council spokesman Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar.

Bayrkdar didn't give details on the charges, but a government official said she was convicted of facilitating correspondence between insurgents and preparing explosive-laden belts. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to release information.

Al-Masri's wife, a mother of three has been in custody since the April 2010 joint U.S.-Iraqi raid north of Baghdad that killed al-Masri along with another prominent al-Qaida in Iraq militant.

Six months later, Iraq's al-Qaida umbrella group, the Islamic State of Iraq threatened to kidnap family members of Iraqi politicians and ministers if al-Masri's wife and children were not released.

Last month, the two daughters and son were handed over to their uncle in Yemen, according to a Yemeni diplomat in Baghdad. The youngest child is 18 months old, while the others are 9 and 7, the diplomat said. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to release information.

Al-Masri, an Egyptian, joined al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan in the late 1990s and trained as a car bomb expert before traveling to Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, U.S. officials have said.

He led the terror organization after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born founder of al-Qaida in Iraq, was killed in June 2006. The group launched a bombing campaign shortly afterward to show that al-Qaida was far from eliminated.

___

Associated Press Writer Saad Abdul-Kadir contributed to this report.

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Police charge man over terror offences (AFP)

LONDON (AFP) – Police have charged a man with four offences under the Terrorism Act, the Greater Manchester force confirmed.

Asim Kauser, 25, from Bolton, was arrested on suspicion of possessing information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing, or preparing an act of terrorism, between January 2009 and June 2011.

Kauser will appear at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court in London on Thursday.

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Indonesia police arrest 2002 Bali bombing suspect (AP)

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Indonesian authorities said Tuesday they arrested a suspect in the 2002 Bali bombings who later ran a jihadi training camp in the Philippines, and two other men with ties to top terrorists after uncovering a new plot against police.

National police spokesman Brig. Gen. Anton Bachrul Alam said Tuesday that the alleged Bali bomber, Heru Kuncoro, was captured June 9 in Pekalongan, a town in central Java.

Police say Kuncoro was a facilitator who purchased electronic equipment for the Bali bombing that killed 202 people, mainly foreigners, and thrust Indonesia into the front lines of the battle against terrorism.

He is among the 16 men arrested in recent days in Java, Borneo and Sulawesi on suspicion of plotting to kill police with cyanide.

Some told police they had received military-style training in a mountainous area of Poso in Sulawesi during 2010. They said they were waging jihad against police for killing top terrorist leaders such as Noordin Top — the bomb-making expert who orchestrated all of the major suicide bombings targeting Westerners in Indonesia, including the Bali nightclub blasts.

Extremists in Indonesia have increasingly targeted police in the past year or so as an ongoing security crackdown has disrupted terrorists' ability to launch large-scale attacks.

One of those arrested in the cyanide raids, Budi Untung Wisesa, died during interrogation and police said an autopsy showed he died from a heart attack. Local media quoted relatives saying they had found a wound on Wisesa's head.

Kuncoro fled to the Philippines in 2003 with Dulmatin, an alleged mastermind of the Bali bombing who was killed in an Indonesian police raid last year.

The pair teamed up with Umar Patek, another Bali bombing suspect, to run a jihadi training camp in the southern Philippines. Patek was arrested in Pakistan in January.

Two of men netted in the cyanide raids, identified only as Faisal and Juarni, were believed to be couriers for Dulmatin and Patek and helped to smuggle weapons from the Philippines to Indonesia, Alam said.

He said the two were involved in attacks that killed two policemen last month in Palu, the capital of Central Sulawesi province, and an April suicide bombing in Cirebon in West Java that wounded 30 in a mosque packed with police.

Alam said the extent of the cyanide plot became clear on Friday with the arrest of From Santanam, a militant, in the capital Jakarta.

"They had planned to poison food and mineral water provided for police officers in canteens across Java and Bali," he said.

The haul from the raids included four M-16 rifles, pistols, two bottles of cyanide and 29 videos about jihad.

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UK police cleared of assaulting terror suspect (AP)

LONDON – Four British police officers were cleared Friday of beating, insulting and sexually assaulting a terrorism suspect wanted in the Unites States.

Constables Nigel Cowley, Roderick James-Bowen, Mark Jones and John Donohue were found not guilty of the alleged assault on Babar Ahmad in December 2003, when he was briefly detained in connection with a suspected British terrorism plot.

Ahmad, a 37-year-old computer specialist, has not faced in charges in Britain, but was arrested in 2004 on a U.S. warrant, accused of running websites used to raise money for terrorists.

Following a four-week trial, a jury at Southwark Crown Court in London dismissed his claims that police had physically harmed him and mocked his Islamic faith. However, police had previously paid him 60,000 pounds (US$98,000) in damages over his alleged treatment.

Colin Reynolds, lawyer for the police, said a bug installed in Ahmad's home before his arrest had proven that his claims of mistreatment were false.

"That evidence proved the account originally given by these officers was correct and specific details of the complaint made by Mr. Ahmad were not present," he said following the verdict.

Reynolds said that the officers were now hoping to return to their usual posts. Three of the men are currently working, but on restricted duties, the fourth is suspended over an unrelated matter.

Scotland Yard said it would carry out its own internal misconduct review before the officers can return to work.

Ahmad, in prison since 2004, has been held without charge for the longest period of any British citizen detained since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

He is awaiting the outcome of a European court hearing on his extradition to the U.S. The court is expected to rule later this year on whether he should be sent for trial.

Ahmad is accused in the U.S. of supporting al-Qaida, Taliban and Chechen militants between 1998 and 2003 by operating a website that raised funds for terrorism and provided instructions on carrying out attacks.

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David Stringer can be reached at http://bit.ly/b2tTK0

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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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British police 'target Asians': report (AFP)

LONDON (AFP) – British police are up to 42 times more likely to use counter-terrorism powers to stop and search people of Asian origin than white people, a report said on Tuesday.

Police are using a power, granted under the Terrorism Act 2000, which allows them to stop people at ports and airports for up to nine hours without the need for reasonable suspicion of involvement in a crime.

More than 85,000 such stops were carried out in 2009 and 2010, according to figures obtained by the Federation of Student Islamic Societies.

An analysis by The Guardian newspaper found that people of Asian origin -- normally people from south Asian countries such as India and Pakistan -- were up to 42 times more likely than white people to be stopped.

Asked by lawmakers on Tuesday whether people of Asian origin in Britain felt they were being singled out, senior police officer Nick Gargan said there was "no shortage of evidence" to back up the claim.

"There is the perception that that's precisely how communities feel," he said.

A total of 2,201 of the stop and searches lasted more than an hour and fewer than one in 100 resulted in an arrest being made, according to the figures.

People of Asian origin made up 41 percent of these stops, white people 19 percent, black people 10 percent and others 30 percent.

Asians make up five percent of Britain's population, while white people make up 91 percent.

Police denied they were singling out any specific groups.

Existing rules ensure "that the examination of a person cannot be based solely on perceived ethnicity or religion," said John Donlon, of the Association of Chief Police Officers.

"Activity is intelligence-led and officers deployed at ports do not single out particular ethnic groups for examination."

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New Yorkers pleased with police on terrorism: poll (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Eighty-nine percent of New Yorkers approve of how police handle the threat of terrorism, reaffirming Police Commissioner Ray Kelly as the most popular public official in the city, a poll said on Thursday.

The Quinnipiac University poll taken May 4-9 was likely influenced by the U.S. raid on May 2 that killed Osama bin Laden but was also in line with previous polls about the New York Police Department, said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

"Ray Kelly didn't kill bin Laden, but there is a spillover," Carroll said. "Polls reflect the headlines. Since 9/11 (the attacks of September 11, 2001), there have been a couple of incidents but nobody has been blown up."

By 89 percent to 8 percent, the 962 registered voters polled approved of the way the police are handling terrorism, up from 85 percent to 11 percent a year ago. The institute also asked the question in February 2006, when 75 percent approved of the department's handling of terrorism.

Kelly had been considered as a possible replacement for FBI Director Robert Mueller, whose 10-year term expires in September, although President Barack Obama on Thursday requested that Mueller be allowed to stay for two more years.

By 71 percent to 17 percent, voters approved of the job Kelly was doing, his highest rating ever.

"Ray Kelly is generally the most popular figure in town," Carroll said. "Their approval ratings are high now but if six months from now the cops shoot an unarmed man, the numbers will go down."

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; editing by Greg McCune)

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