Jakarta – Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network has supplied money and weapons for Indonesians and other Islamic fighters waging a "holy war" against Christians in the Malukus, an expert said Friday.
Al Chaidar, an academic who has written 18 books on radical Muslim groups in the world's most populous Muslim nation, said in an interview that bin Laden and his network channel funds and weapons to a militant Islamic network here called the "Darul Islam" to fight the jihad in the Malukus, Indonesia's fabled "Spice Islands".
The links were forged when 30,000 Indonesians fought alongside the mujahideen from 1983 to 1989 against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, he said.
Bin Laden, considered by the US as the chief suspect behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, was among the key backers of the mujahideen fighters.
Al Chaidar said the 15,000 Indonesian fighters who returned home make up the core of the Darul Islam, which he described as a clandestine network that conducts terrorist operations in Indonesia.
"They maintain contact with the international mujahideen network, including Osama bin Laden's group. Wherever a jihad is in force, this network provides money and weapons and all tools needed for the jihad, and they mobilise fighters to go to the jihad area," Al Chaidar told AFP.
"This is exactly what is happening in the Malukus. Osama bin Laden is one of those who have sent money and weapons to jihad fighters in the Malukus."
Al Chaidar estimated that bin Laden supplied up to 50 million rupiah for the first wave of 7,000 jihad fighters sent to the Malukus in "The majority of Darul Islam leaders make contact directly with Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda directly sends funds. Al Qaeda has supplied money and weapons for the jihad in the Malukus," he said. An estimated 4,000 people have died in three years of sporadic fighting between Muslims and Christians in the Maluku islands.
The militant Laskar Jihad group, whose commander Jaffar Umar Thalib is a former mujahideen fighter, publicly trained and paraded its fighters in Jakarta before sending them to the Malukus in May 2000. Local and international observers have blamed the group for much of the violence since mid-2000.
Al Chaidar said he is a leader of one of eight moderate factions within the organisation's 14 factions. He became involved with the group initially through his research in 1991 when he was a student at the University of Indonesia.
Since 1999, he said, the eight moderate factions have been trying to transform the organisation "from an underground, pro-violence, clandestine movement to an open, non-violent, above-the-ground group."
Al Chaidar said the international mujahideen network, made up of former fighters from Chechnya, Kashmir, the southern Philippines, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, held meetings in Malaysia in 1999 and 2000 at which they pinpointed Indonesia as the ideal place to develop their movement.
"They called Indonesia the number one country in terms of looseness, corruption, and instability. They decided it was very easy to infiltrate and a very good place to develop themselves," he said.
Al Chaidar said as far as he knew bin Laden had never visited Indonesia but did not rule out the possibility that he could try to hide here.
However the scholar said he was unaware of plans by Al Qaeda or Darul Islam to attack US interests in Indonesia. "I met a band of mujahideen fighters two months ago who said plans had been decided six months ago to attack the US in the US, not here," he said.
The US embassy in Jakarta has warned its citizens repeatedly in recent months that extremist groups may be targetting US interests in Indonesia.