Free Republic

Decree to shut down during the fasting month upsets owners of nightclubs, amusement centres, karaoke lounges and massage parlours JAKARTA - The Islamic fasting month of Ramadan started yesterday and the Indonesian entertainment industry is grumbling over local edicts to close nightclubs, massage parlours and amusement centres for the entire period. Jakarta masseur Rini Widowati said she would observe the fast, but grumbled about a city order that shut down her establishment. 'It sucks,' Ms Widowati said, adding that although she would continue to get her basic salary, she would not earn any of the tips that make up most...

Jakarta (AsiaNews) – After tens of armed militants belonging to the Islamic Defender Front (Front Pembela Islam or FPI) rushed into the Saint Bernadette of the Child Jesus (Sang Timur) Catholic complex in Cileduk, Tangerang, Banten province (35-40 km west from Jakarta), church and school were closed and masses cancelled.Following last Friday prayers at a local mosque –during which inflammatory sermons were made against the Christian community– at least fifty shouting Muslims attacked the Catholic complex. They burnt the front gate and blocked other exits as their numbers swelled to include even more militants, including tens of Muslim women. Under...

THE brave little girl who survived the horror of the Australian Embassy blast in Jakarta was yesterday reunited with the humble hero who saved her life. In an emotional bedside meeting organised by the Sunday Herald Sun, Elizabeth "Manny" Musus, 5, met Ahmad Usman, the air-conditioning worker who carried her from the rubble of the massive September 9 blast. "All I can say is, it is a miracle from God to see her condition, which is so much better than before," Ahmad said after the meeting at the Singapore hospital. The terror attack claimed the lives of nine people -...

Warning of bomb in text message By Marianne Kearney in Jakarta (Filed: 11/09/2004) Indonesian police were warned about the bomb attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta in a mobile phone text message 45 minutes before the bomb exploded, Alexander Downer, the Australian foreign minister, said yesterday. The message said a western embassy would be attacked unless Abu Bakar Bashir, the Islamic cleric being held on suspicion of involvement in terrorism, was released immediately. Bashir, alleged to be the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, the group behind the Bali bombings, is due to be put on trial later this month....

JAKARTA -- An Indonesian court on Tuesday sentenced a Muslim militant to 10 years in jail for helping plan last year's J.W. Marriott Hotel bombing, but acquitted him of involvement in the 2002 Bali attacks. The court ruled that Jhoni Hendrawan, alias Idris, could not be prosecuted over the Bali case, in which 202 people died, because of a ruling last month by the country's Constitutional Court prohibiting the retroactive application of the anti-terror law used to charge him. 'In light of the Constitutional Court decision to declare invalid the retroactive use of the anti-terror law, we reject the second...

...Earlier this month in Jakarta, Secretary of State Colin Powell met with North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun, the highest-level meeting between the two countries since 2002. They discussed a plan put forward by the U.S. at six-party talks in late June to exchange a step-by-step dismantling of Pyongyang's nuclear program for South Korean and Japanese assistance to North Korea and security assurances from the U.S.... North Korea continues to issue outrageous threats. Just a week after the Jakarta meeting, Defense Minister Kim Il-chol warned that his country would pummel the U.S. "with merciless crushing blows" if provoked.... In...

Top Indonesian terror suspect Abu Bakar Bashir could be charged in connection with last year's Jakarta Marriott hotel bombing, police have said, after charges linked to the Bali bombing were dropped. Detectives are still "investigating links" between Bashir's capacity as alleged head of the Al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and those who carried out the hotel attack, national police spokesman Inspector General Paiman said. "As the head of JI, it is very likely that he could have planned the Marriott attack before his arrest in October, 2002. This is what we are still trying to unravel," Gen Paiman said. Eleven...

<p>Sunni terrorists. Thereafter, 11 terrorists and their supporters were taken out.</p> <p>Iraqi terrorists seek out and complain to the mainstream media.</p> <p>USN F14B Tomcats over the Iraqi landscape after refueling from an Air Force KC-10.</p> <p>Marine heroes train Iraqi Civil Defense Corps in weapons handling near Anah, Iraq.</p>

[North Korean agent apparantly riled up, over the weekend, at the attention he has generated from Japanese reporters in Jakarta] Charles Robert Jenkins, a US Army sergeant, defected to North Korea in 1965, near his post along the DMZ. He is considered a deserter by the US government.After nearly 40 years in North Korea however, he and his two children were allowed by risk-taker and dictator Kim Jong-il to go to non-extradition treaty Indonesia on Friday, to meet his separated Japanese wife, who was kidnapped by North Korean agents years ago, and was able to get out of North...

4 February, 2004 INDONESIA New Muslim militant group born to fight Christians Jakarta (AsiaNews)- The latest analysis report prepared by the Jakarta-based International Crisis Group (ICG) released early this week, stated that a radical new Islamic militia had emerged in the country. The newly established group ?Mujahedden Kompak? was formed by hard-liners who split from ?Jemaah Islamiyah?, considered to be Al-Qaeda?s affiliate in Southeast Asia. The report-analysis, written by ICG?s Chapter Director Sidney Jones, an American expert in Southeast Asian issues, describes the faction. The Muslim militant group exists in the Central Sulawesi province, and is highly concentrated in the...

Southeast Asia Indonesia makes plans to build nuclear plant JAKARTA - The Indonesian government plans to build its first nuclear power plant in 2016, with a capacity of 600 megawatts, to meet a growing demand for power, an official said. Electricity and energy utilization director general Yogo Pratomo said that based on a study by the Batan Atomic Research Center, the project is highly feasible. Yogo said the plan is being discussed between government agencies but the people and the environment need to be prepared to accept the project as a profitable one. Indonesia has been long ready with human...

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A young Islamic militant accused of involvement in last year's bombing of a U.S.-run hotel in Indonesia told a court Monday he had targeted Americans and regretted that all but one of those killed were his countrymen. Prosecutors charged Mohamad Rais, 28, with helping to organize the Aug. 5 bombing of the JW Marriott hotel that killed 12 people, including a Dutch man, and wounded 150. He faces the death penalty if convicted. "I'm remorseful because Muslims became victims. The ones who I targeted were Americans. Now I have to be accountable because I was indeed involved...

ISLAMABAD : Pakistan on Wednesday handed over six Indonesian Islamic students held here on suspicion of terror links to a delegation from Jakarta for repatriation to their homeland, officials said. The detainees includes Rusman Gunawan, the younger brother of alleged top terrorist Hambali, considered al-Qaeda's pointman in Asia and also former operations chief of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror group. "The students have been handed over to the delegation," a senior government official said here. The official would not disclose when the Indonesian students would be flown out of Pakistan . Foreign office spokesman Masood Khan confirmed the handover and said...

Two Indonesian Muslim militants, who have confessed to bombing the Marriott hotel in Jakarta, have expressed remorse for the attack and apologised to families of the victims. "I admit that I did it - I apologise to families of the victims sincerely without any pressure from others and to the Muslim community who have felt the slander and negative impacts of my actions," Tohir told SCTV television. The August 5 car bombing at the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta killed 12 people, including a Dutch banker. Tohir and his alleged accomplice Ismail were arrested on Wednesday local time in their...

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesian police arrested one of the most wanted men in Southeast Asia as he and an accomplice were preparing suicide bombings of foreign targets, a top officer said on Thursday. But police said two other men on regional most wanted lists slipped through their fingers as security forces closed in on their hideout just hours later. In the first raid at dawn on Wednesday, police swooped on two men with explosives in a hotel room in the town of Cirebon, 140 miles east of Jakarta, arresting a man identified only as Tohir and an accomplice, who had...

A NEW breed of homegrown 'twentysomething terrorists' is poised to strike at Indonesia's international hotels with a wave of suicide bombings in December. These new generation Jemaah Islamiah terrorists are every bit as deadly and fanatically anti-American as captured leaders Hambali and Imam Samudra, said intelligence sources. The Sunday Times understands that 12 of them, drawn from six terrorist cells in Indonesia, plan to turn the festive December season into a bloody nightmare. Sources disclosed that at a meeting of JI leaders in East Kalimantan in March, Zulkarnaen, their new chief, and Azahari Husin, JI's master bomb-maker, chose the...

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Money sent by al-Qaida to support the families of suspects arrested in the Oct. 12 Bali bombings was used to finance the Aug. 5 attack on the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta, Indonesian terror suspect Hambali has told investigators, a media report said Sunday. Hambali also reportedly said that Jemaah Islamiyah, the group blamed for the Bali bombings that killed 202 people and the attack on the Marriott, received "operational funds" from senior al-Qaida leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Indonesian police were not immediately available for comment on the report in Sunday's respected Media Indonesia daily....

In the al Mukmin Islamic school in the Javanese city of Solo a slogan above one classroom reads, "Death in the way of Allah is our highest aspiration." In a boarding school where the alumni includes nearly all of Indonesia's top terror suspects, pictures of AK47's are plastered on the hallways. The suicide bomber from last month's Marriott Hotel blast in Jakarta studied here, as did many of the men now on trial for the Bali bombing last year. While authorities have shut down many Islamic schools throughout Indonesia, the primary feeder school co-founded by Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir...

Jakarta: Hambali is known to have sent funds totalling 45,000 US dollars to "bomb" Indonesia through a Malaysian national given the alias Li-Li. It is now being analysed to find out if this money was used for the Marriott bombing. This was announced by Indonesia's senior detective Commissioner General Erwin Mappasang at a press conference in Jakarta police headquarters today (Tuesday 19 August). "The police are still investigating whether or not Hambali played a role in the Marriott bombing because it is certainly known that a Malaysian citizen arrested in Thailand under the alias Li-Li was sent 45,000 US dollars...

JAKARTA, Indonesia, Aug. 17 — Security forces surrounded hotels, churches and foreign offices Sunday as Indonesia celebrated its Independence Day amid warnings of terrorist attacks after the arrest of al-Qaida’s alleged point man in Southeast Asia. After ceremonies at the presidential palace in Jakarta, national police chief Gen. Da’i Bachtiar announced that nine suspects had been arrested in connection with the Aug. 5 attack on the Marriott Hotel in the capital, in which 12 people were killed and nearly 150 injured. BACHTIAR SAID the nine had been picked up in separate raids over the past week. He gave no further...