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Militant Islamic Cleric Released from Indonesian Prison Tuesday , June 13, 2006 JAKARTA, Indonesia — A hardline cleric alleged to be a top leader in the Al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah terror group was released from prison Wednesday to cries of "God is great" from scores of cheering supporters. Abu Bakar Bashir, 68, had served 26 months for conspiracy in the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people and thrust Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, onto the front lines of the war on terror. "I thank Allah that I am free today," a smiling and waving Bashir said after...

BRAVERY AWARDS CROSS OF VALOUR (CV) For acts of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme peril. Senior Constable Timothy Ian BRITTEN, WA Citation: At approximately 11.30pm on 12 October 2002, following a terrorist bombing in Bali, Constable Timothy Britten placed his life in danger by repeatedly entering the burning Sari Club to rescue a seriously injured woman and to search for survivors. Constable Britten, a West Australian police officer on secondment to the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in East Timor, was in Bali on leave. As he walked to his hotel, he heard an explosion that he...

A heads up for Australians (I know there's a few of you out there). If you have access to Foxtel channels, Seconds From Disaster, 8.30pm this evening on the National Geographic Channel will be analysing the first Bali bombing (October 12th, 2002). They are doing quite a bit on terrorism at the moment. Last night, National Geographic broadcast 7/7: Attack on London while Discovery Channel broadcast The Flight That Fought Back.

Four Indonesians arrested last week have been named suspects under anti-terrorism laws in October's restaurant bombings on Bali and for hiding a key militant. "These four people are believed to have been involved in the 2005 Bali bombings," deputy national police spokesman Anton Bahrul Alam said. "They also helped hide Noordin M Top during and after the bombings." Police have been conducting a nationwide manhunt for Top, a senior member of Jemaah Islamiah - a shadowy militant group seen as the South-East Asian arm of Al Qaeda. Top is blamed for helping mastermind a series of bombings in Indonesia in...

A SYDNEY man allegedly telephoned the suspected leader of al-Qa'ida in Spain – Abu Dahdah – seeking help to move a "brother" and his family throughout Europe. The allegation about former Qantas baggage handler Bilal Khazal – made in documents tendered in Mr Dahdah's terrorism trial – contradicts claims by him that he had never spoken to the alleged terror chief, or even knew who he was. As more details of a network of alleged terror supporters in Australia emerged yesterday, it has been claimed a second Australian named in the Spanish court documents, Melbourne cleric Sheikh Mohammed Omran, was...

MOST of the ball bearings that ripped through Terry Fitzgerald's body - partially severing his spinal cord, cutting nerves to two fingers and shredding his spleen - are still there. Doctors have been able to remove six but the other 26 will remain lodged in his back, arms and head, constant reminders of the Bali bomb blast in October that killed his son Brendan, badly injured his daughter Jessica and changed his life forever. "The one in the head went through the side of my neck here, missed all the important stuff and ended up at the top of my...

Indonesia will investigate a hardline Muslim boarding school founded by radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir as part of a crackdown on Islamic militancy following recent triple suicide bombings in Bali. Police in Bali also said they would charge an extremist accused of being the right-hand man for fugitive terrorist Noordin Top with involvement in the October 1 attacks, meaning he will face a possible death penalty. Indonesia's Religious Affairs Department said it would investigate the teachings of the Al Mukmin boarding school founded by Bashir near the town in Ngruki. The school counts several of the original Bali bombers among...

UNTIL the last minute of his life at 3.30pm last Wednesday, the logistics skills that the Bali bombing mastermind known as the “Demolition Man” had polished at Reading University did not desert him. As a team from Indonesia’s elite police unit, Detachment 88, crept into place around his hideaway, Azahari bin Husin, 48, was working with an accomplice on the explosive devices that had made his name. They had more than 30 small charges with intricate electronic settings, which police experts think were intended to detonate larger bombs. Computer disks, several mobile phones and jihadi tracts littered the main room...

Indonesia's most wanted man and the terrorist blamed for a string of attacks including the Bali bombings has reportedly blown himself up after police raided his East Java hideout this afternoon. Malaysian bomb mastermind Dr Azahari Husin apparently triggered a bomb killing himself and two accomplices after police surrounded a villa in the hill resort town of Batu, near Malang, local television news stations reported. An undated police handout photo shows Malaysian bombmaker Azahari Husin. Photo: Reuters Witnesses told of gunshots and at least two explosions after crack anti-terror police raided the house around 3.30pm this afternoon. The area was...

INDONESIA on Thursday confirmed that master bomb-maker and Islamic radical Azahari Husin, one of Asia's top terror suspects and most wanted men, was killed after a shootout with police. Azahari, a Malaysian from the al-Qaeda linked Jemaaah Islamiyah (JI) militant network who was known as the 'Demolition Man', was tracked down Wednesday at his remote hideway in Batu and reportedly blew himself up to avoid capture. Indonesia's national police chief said fingerprinting had confirmed that Azahari, known as a master of disguise, was killed during the stand-off in East Java. "There were two comparative (sets of fingerprints) and both are...

Jakarta: Malaysian terrorist and Bali bombing ringleader Azahari Husin is believed to have been killed during a shoot-out with Indonesian police. A senior member of an Indonesian anti-terror squad confirmed that two suspects were killed during a raid yesterday afternoon on a villa in the central Java town of Batu. The local police chief was quoted later as saying seven suspects were killed during the gun battle. The anti-terror squad member told The Age that one of the dead was thought to be Azahari. "One has the physical characteristics of Azahari. Now we are identifying him," he said. Azahari, along...

COTABATO CITY -- Alleged Indonesian terrorists Dulmatin and Omar Patek were reportedly sighted in Lanao del Sur province last week, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao police chief said Tuesday. Senior Superintendent Akmad Mamalinta said the two were seen in the company of Muslim gunmen near Marawi City. Mamalinta said they would track down the two Indonesians, reportedly bomb experts from the regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah. Copyright 2005 Inquirer News Service. All rights reserved.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - A militant cleric jailed for his role in the 2002 Bali bombings will be among 53,000 inmates receiving sentence reductions to mark Indonesia's independence day, authorities and media reports said Saturday. Abu Bakar Bashir, alleged spiritual head of the al-Qaida-linked terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, was convicted in March of conspiracy in the Bali bombings that killed 202 people, many of them Australian tourists. Others convicted in the Bali blasts will also receive reductions in their prison terms, Minister of Justice and Human Rights Hamid Awaluddin told the Jakarta Post. "Convicts with a record of good behavior...

JAKARTA: Indonesia’s Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of militant Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, upholding his 30-month prison sentence for his part in the conspiracy behind the 2002 Bali bombings, a lawyer for Bashir said yesterday. The appeal had been filed in late June after appellate judges at Jakarta High Court upheld a 30-month jail sentence handed down by the lower court in March. “The appeal was rejected, but we will pursue a judicial review of the case,” the aging cleric’s lawyer, Mahendra Data, said. Data said he had been notified “verbally” on August 3 about the court’s decision,...

By PAUL HAVEN, Associated Press Writer 10 minutes ago ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's president said Tuesday he will hand over senior al-Qaida terrorist suspect Abu Farraj al-Libbi to the United States for prosecution, even though the man is believed behind two assassination attempts against him and could have received the death penalty here. ADVERTISEMENT President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said al-Libbi was cooperating but had not provided any useful information on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, and that Pakistan has no interest in keeping him. "We deport al-Qaida suspects to the United States," Musharraf told a CNN conference in Atlanta,...

This week's Indonesian court verdict against Abu Bakar Bashir on 'evil conspiracy' charges meted out a pickpocket's punishment to a terrorist ringleader responsible for an atrocity second only to 9/11. Bashir's 2 ½ year sentence for the October 2002 Bali nightclub bombing is a parody of justice and an insult to the lost lives of the U.S., Australian, Indonesian and other citizens who died in the attack. This sentence is especially bitter because the U.S. and Australia have expended so much blood and treasure to rid the world of terrorism elsewhere in Asia. But in Indonesia, there is no justice...

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - A witness Tuesday for the first time linked an aging Indonesian cleric to a regional terror group affiliated with al-Qaida and blamed for nightclub bombings in Bali that killed 202 people two years ago. The witness, Nasir Abbas, said he was a former operative with the Jemaah Islamiyah terror group and that cleric Abu Bakar Bashir claimed to have met with al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Bashir is being tried on charges of leading Jemaah Islamiyah and inspiring his followers to carry out the Oct. 12, 2002, bombings - whose victims included seven Americans...

JAKARTA, Indonesia — The Indonesian government yesterday opened the retrial of an Indonesian cleric charged with leading an al-Qaida-linked group and inciting its members to carry out attacks against U.S. interests. Prosecutors seek to prove Abu Bakar Bashir, 66, is responsible for last year's suicide bomb attack on the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, which killed 12 people, mostly Indonesians. The charges are filed under a new anti-terror law, which authorizes the death penalty if he is found guilty. The government also charged Bashir with involvement in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, which killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists. That...

Indonesian police say they will not charge a militant Islamic cleric for the 2002 nightclub bombing on the island of Bali. The decision was made just days after Indonesia's Constitutional Court limited the use of the country's anti-terrorism legislation. Indonesian police said Wednesday that Abu Bakar Bashir, the militant cleric alleged to have been the leader of the terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, will not be charged in connection with the October 2002 Bali bombing. More than 200 people were killed in that attack. Most of them were young western tourists. The decision comes just days after Indonesia's Constitutional Court ruled...

<p>LONDON — Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, al Qaeda's purported operations chief, has told U.S. interrogators that the group had been planning attacks on the Library Tower in Los Angeles and the Sears Tower in Chicago on the heels of the September 11, 2001, terror strikes.</p>