Ellen Nakashima and Alan Sipress, Yogyakarta – Abubakar Baasyir is a wanted man in Malaysia and Singapore. The Bush administration is weighing whether to add him to its terrorist list for what intelligence officials say is his leadership of a militant Islamic network linked to al Qaeda.
The government in Indonesia, where he lives, faces growing international pressure to arrest him, but fears a Muslim backlash. Details provided by suspects seized in Singapore and Indonesia, revealed this month, implicate him in plots to bomb US embassies and other targets in Southeast Asia.
But the 64-year-old cleric, who was imprisoned in the late 1970s as a potential political enemy of the Suharto government and later spent 14 years in exile, shows little sign of agitation. He not only denies he is the leader of Jemaah Islamiah, the militant network, but also says no such organization exists.
However, Baasyir, with his gold-rimmed glasses and gray beard tinged with yellow, volunteered in an interview late last week that his lessons have been the inspiration for an informal network of followers called the Sunna Group, based in Singapore and Malaysia. So committed are they, he said, to the values he preached that they have set off to fight for Muslim causes in Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, the Philippines and the Moluccas, an Indonesian region beset by violence between Muslims and Christians.
"The students who absorb my teaching and finally understand Islam completely want to implement the teaching of jihad," he said.
He offered them Islamic guidance, he said, but they found their own military training and paid their own way. Many of these followers, whom he calls his "listeners," have been arrested in Malaysia and Singapore, including one man jailed by Singaporean authorities in December, he said, for allegedly participating in a plot to attack the US Embassy and other Western targets in the city-state.
Baasyir spoke slowly and steadily, settled comfortably into a torn, blue armchair in the busy headquarters of the Indonesian Mujahadin Council, a militant Muslim organization he helped found. The group is based in downtown Yogyakarta, a university town in central Java that was the center of an Islamic resurgence in the 1980s. His discussion of Islamic teaching and the recent allegations against him continued for nearly an hour, broken only by the song of his mobile phone, alerting him to incoming calls with a traditional Arabic tune.
Intelligence agencies are focusing more intently on Baasyir following information provided this month by a suspected al Qaeda operative, Omar al-Farouq, under interrogation by US investigators. According to a government document summarizing key points of the interrogation, al-Farouq said Baasyir was the "coordinator" of a plot to carry out truck and car bombings of US embassies across Southeast Asia around the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Al-Farouq reportedly said Baasyir had authorized him to use Jemaah Islamiah operatives and resources in the attacks.
According to the document, al-Farouq said Baasyir was behind a 1999 bombing of a mosque in Jakarta, meant to incite Muslim anger against Christians, and a series of church bombings on Christmas Eve 2000 that killed 18 people. Al-Farouq also said that "al Qaeda encourages Baasyir's goal to spark a religious civil war in Indonesia in order to achieve his vision of a pure Islamic state under Islamic law."
Baasyir denied the allegations, point by point. He said he has never met al-Farouq. "I ask the American government to give me proof that I am linked to terrorism," he said. "I am prepared to face Omar al-Farouq face to face. But don't persecute me in a cowardly way." Baasyir called the accusations a CIA setup. He was a victim, he said, of a US-sponsored vilification campaign.
"They are accusing me of being a terrorist because I have a very objective assessment of Osama bin Laden," Baasyir said. "I don't call him a terrorist. Even until today, the American government cannot prove that he is a terrorist connected to the World Trade Center. In fact, I would even call Osama a great Islamic warrior until the US government can come up with evidence that he is a terrorist." He asserted that the US government objects to his outspoken advocacy of an Islamic state under religious law. "The enforcement of sharia must become the law of the country," he said. "This is not popular among Americans. And this is what they're afraid of the most." President Bush, he said, is using the war on terrorism to "camouflage" his true goal of defeating Islam.
Baasyir is the spiritual leader of a militant network that has at its hub a religious boarding school, Pondok Ngruki, founded in 1972 by Baasyir and fellow cleric Abdullah Sungkar.
The school, in the city of Solo 40 miles southwest of Yogyakarta, has turned out at least one student now charged with terrorist activities. Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, 30, has been detained in Manila since January in connection with illegal possession of explosives and falsification of documents. Philippine authorities say he participated in the plan to attack US assets in Singapore.
Baasyir's vision of an Islamic state sharpened during his years in exile. He and Sungkar, who were persecuted by the Suharto government in the 1970s and fled Indonesia in 1985 after their release from prison, began Islamic discussion groups in Malaysia. These, Baasyir said, grew into the Sunna Group, dedicated to realigning Islamic practice in Malaysia and Singapore with the teachings of the prophet Muhammad. Over the years, the number of "listeners" at his lectures grew, he said.
Baasyir returned to Indonesia after Suharto fell from power in 1998 and organized Koranic reading groups. But they are unrelated to those of the Sunna Group, he said.
Baasyir has mellowed since he opened Pondok Ngruki 30 years ago, said Ibnu Chanifah, the assistant academic director at the school. "Before he saw things in black and white," said Chanifah. "But now he's ready to discuss other religious ideas, meet with other Islamic communities." The school today educates 2,100 boys and girls in the sciences and Islamic studies in three compounds of whitewashed buildings arranged around courtyards shaded by mango and cashew nut trees. Each classroom is plain, with simple wooden desks, Koranic inscriptions and a single ceiling fan to counter the heat. The boys, dressed in white shirts and blue pants, peer out of dormitory windows, eager to try out their English, which they practice with one another every Monday and Thursday.
Baasyir had no contact with the school while in exile, Chanifah said. Since his return, he "has put a very strict limit" on his involvement, Chanifah said.
Baasyir said he continues to focus his teachings on the urgent need to establish an Islamic state, not just in Indonesia but wherever there are Muslims. He said members of other religions, including Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists, would be able to follow their own beliefs under the protection of an Islamic government.
Because bin Laden shares the goal of promoting Islamic rule, Baasyir said that he would pray for his welfare. So, too, Baasyir said he hopes that all Indonesian Muslims will pray for him, as pressure intensifies on the government to arrest him.
Flashing a smile, Baasyir said that unlike politicians, he is unwilling to predict what will happen if he is arrested. "I will defend myself the best I can, as long as it's in line with sharia law and it doesn't strongly contradict Indonesian law."