Jakarta – Indonesian vice president and prominent Islamic leader Hamzah Haz on Friday warned the United States not to target the world's most populous Muslim nation in its war on terrorism, the official Antara news agency reported.
Referring to a newspaper interview given by US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz this week, Haz hinted American investment could be affected.
"I think the United States will really lose if Indonesia becomes a target. There is plenty of American investment here," Haz told reporters in Jakarta without elaborating.
In the next phase of Washington's war on terrorism, the United States could focus on keeping terrorists out of places like Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia and the Philippines, Wolfowitz said in the interview.
Haz said he hoped such statements would not worsen ties between the two countries, which have had a period of strained relations in the past few years, particularly over the bloodshed that accompanied East Timor's break from Indonesia in 1999.
"Please don't let this cause a reaction which does not benefit our relations," he said, also without elaborating.
Radical Muslim groups staged vocal but mainly small protests when the United States began bombing Afghanistan in October and made threats against American interests here that have so far proved hollow. The protests have long since petered out.
Moderate Muslims fear a backlash should the United States begin overtly pressuring Indonesia to crack down on militants.
Indonesia has come under the spotlight because of suspicions the al Qaeda network of Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden has tried to establish links with the radical groups, which comprise a tiny minority of Indonesia's moderate Muslim populace.
Despite that speculation, Washington left Indonesia off a recently issued list of 45 countries where al Qaeda had operated.
Wolfowitz, a former US ambassador to Indonesia, said in the interview there was the potential for Muslim terrorists to link up with radical Islamic groups here "and find a little corner for themselves in a country that's otherwise quite unfriendly to terrorism".
Intelligence chief A.M Hendropriyono last month sparked confusion by saying al Qaeda had once been in volatile Poso town of Central Sulawesi but was now gone. He appeared to base those remarks on information provided by Spanish authorities probing the al Qaeda network and has made no public remarks since.
Police have said there is no proof. Amien Rais, head of Indonesia's top legislature, also told Reuters last week that Hendropriyono had since told him there was no evidence.
More than 1,000 people have died in clashes between Muslims and Christians in the past three years around Poso.
Haz said it was better Jakarta requested an explanation from the American embassy over the interview, adding Wolfowitz was entitled to such an opinion if he had intelligence to back it up.
Washington launched its war on Afghanistan to hunt down bin Laden and members of al Qaeda, accusing them of the September 11 attacks that killed around 3,000 people in the United States.
Some analysts say Indonesia's poverty and several years of crisis make it ripe for extremist influences to fester, although many believe that despite those conditions the country will not become a breeding ground for radical pan-Islamic groups.