[A new report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute says there's evidence that Al Qaeda members fleeing Afghanistan have moved to Indonesia and built links with Islamic groups. So what evidence is there of al-Qaeda presence in Indonesia?]

Presenter/Interviewer: Tom Fayle

Speakers: Dr Greg Fealy, of the Australian National University in Canberra.

Fealy: There is certainly some evidence that individual Al Qaeda members and activists have gone to Indonesia. There have been a number of arrests which have been publicised in the papers. But, I think the main thing to point out here is that there is a gap between the assertions of officials and quite often journalists who are acting on the basis of briefings from western and sometimes regional intelligence officials about the extent of Al Qaeda penetration – the gap between what those people say and what the available evidence on public record would indicate to be the case – so while it would be entirely plausible to argue that Al Qaeda has a presence in Indonesia, the reality is we've still not had evidence given to us to show that cells have actually been exposed in Indonesia or that a number of the individuals who have been detained or have been found to be involved – that they had broader networks within the country. At the moment it's more within the category of supposition.

Fayle: Then if the evidence is so mixed – what does that say about the current policy towards Indonesia being adopted by the United States and other countries, for Jakarta to mount a major crackdown on its more vocal Islamic groups?

Fealy: Alot of people – myself included – regard that as misguided because there has been a pattern, not only in the Suharto era but even before that, of State agencies, particularly security agencies in Indonesia, being very heavy handed in their oppression of – or suppression of – radical Islamic groups and on occasions in fact also manipulating those groups: cultivating them, recruiting them for particular purposes and then setting them up so that they can be used as evidence of the violent intent of some radical muslims in Indonesia. And the cumulative effect of this type of policy has been to further radicalise those groups and probably to make them more desperate, to make them more prone to violent activities and certainly to sharpen what was already a fairly militant ideology that they espoused. So the risk is that if America pushes Indonesia's intelligence and Security Services to have this crackdown on Islamic groups, it will in fact be counter-productive: that lots of groups that are radical but not terrorists will be targetted; that this may have or cause a further hardening of their attitudes. This may drive them in fact, closer towards an Al Qaeda model of behaviour rather than just keeping them in the camp of peaceful but just very radical Muslims.