Don Greenlees, Jakarta – On June 5, alleged al-Qa'ida operative Omar al-Faruq was arrested by Indonesian intelligence officials and handed over to the CIA. Al-Faruq's arrest and deportation were kept quiet from the Indonesian public; the national police were not even informed.
It is this kind of unheralded co-operation that wins Indonesia occasional praise from US officials for its contribution to the war on terrorism. Al-Faruq is regarded by US authorities as a valuable catch; someone who played a significant role in planning terrorist attacks.
Under interrogation, al-Faruq spoke of plots to assassinate the Indonesian President and other prominent Indonesians, blow up US diplomatic missions, send suicide bombers against US Navy ships in port and start a sectarian civil war in Indonesia, according to a document summarising his testimony.
Despite the assistance of Indonesia's National Intelligence Agency in this and other important captures, Indonesia still manages to project an attitude of ambivalence to the threat of terrorism. The Government has established an intricate balance between private helpfulness in the US war on terrorism and public aloofness.
This policy balance is becoming harder to maintain. On one side, the Government must contend with the political elite and a public that is distrustful of US intentions; on the other, it is presented with growing evidence that some of its citizens have engaged in plotting domestic and international terrorism.
Politicians and community leaders dismiss recent US warnings of "specific and credible" threats against its diplomatic missions or citizens as an over-reaction or an attempt to embarrass the Government into taking action against hardline Muslims.
In some quarters, al-Faruq's sensational testimony that he was aware of plots to assassinate President Megawati Sukarnoputri has met with derision. Such scepticism is fuelled by the fantastic nature of some of al-Faruq's allegations.
According to a CIA summary, he alleged that two plots against the President failed because on one occasion an assassin blew his leg off with a home-made bomb he was carrying in a Dunkin' Donuts box, and on another occasion the plotters failed to smuggle into Indonesia the guns they wanted.
Al-Faruq, in his early 30s, has been described as a Kuwaiti, although authorities in Kuwait say he is an Iraqi by the name of Mahmoud Ahmad Mohammed Ahmad. According to statements he gave to the CIA, he was assigned by senior al-Qa'ida operational commanders to work with southeast Asian terror network Jemaah Islamiah in the late 1990s.
The operations he later worked on are more notable for their failures than successes. His al-Qa'ida handlers gave him the task of planning "large-scale attacks against US interests in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam and Cambodia". He developed plans for car and truck bomb attacks against US embassies in the region in 2000 and 2002.
He also tried to recruit suicide bombers for an attack on a US Navy vessel in the east Java port of Surabaya.
All these operations against hard targets did not materialise, either because they confronted effective security barriers or because of operational failure.
But where the terrorist network al-Faruq describes had more success was against softer domestic targets. He has claimed Jemaah Islamiah's leader in Indonesia – firebrand cleric Abu Bakar Bashir – was intent on inciting a "religious civil war in Indonesia in order to achieve his vision of a pure Islamic state under Islamic law".
To that end Bashir, al-Faruq alleges, approved and gave material support to the bombings of churches in Indonesia during Christmas 2000. Eighteen people were killed, a number of them members of bombing parties. Bashir also allegedly ordered the April 1999 bombing of Jakarta's main mosque in the hope of blaming Christians and provoking unrest.
These allegations should be of great interest to Indonesian police, yet Bashir, who was questioned early this year over allegations of masterminding terrorism, remains free. Police and government ministers say they have no evidence to launch a prosecution.
The problem for the Government is as much political as legal. Given the widespread scepticism over terrorism, there is concern Bashir's detention would prompt a backlash and help incite radical Muslims. The Government could be portrayed as doing the US's bidding. Indeed, the secrecy surrounding al-Faruq's arrest and other operations is designed to avoid that perception.
But increasingly, Jakarta faces being caught between demands to clean up its own backyard and domestic hostility to US policy.
Singaporean officials this week announced details of the activities of 19 Jemaah Islamiah members arrested on August 16. As more information emerges about a region-wide terrorist network, overlapping Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines, pressure on the Indonesian Government to take a stand increases.
But its freedom to take such a stand risks being increasingly constrained as US policy heads in more controversial directions, such as an attack on Iraq. For Megawati, keeping both US and domestic opinions happy won't be easy.