Surakata – About 1,500 militant Muslims from various regions in Java and Sumatra attended a mass anti-US rally in Surakata on Wednesday and declared they were ready to wage a jihad against Washington.

Secretary-general of the Front for the Defenders of Islam (FPI) Ahmad Sobri Lubis said that the rally was held to protest allegations by members of the international community that the al-Qaeda network was active in Indonesia and that Indonesian Islamic leader Abubakar Ba'asyir was involved with international terrorist networks.

"We declared at the rally that Indonesian Muslims should never trust any statement from the US government as long as they continue repressing Muslims in Afghanistan," Lubis said.

"Everyone who attended the rally is waiting for instructions from their leaders to stage a jihad against America," he told AFP following the 90 minute-rally, which ended shortly before dusk.

The rally was decided on last week during a meeting at a Muslim boarding school headed by Ba'asyir in Ngruki, near the Central Java city of Surakata.

Participants at the rally also gave their "ultimate support" for Ba'asyir, whose name, Lubis said, had been "smeared" by a Time magazine report and accusations of links to terrorists by Malaysia and Singapore.

A recent Time magazine report based on allegedly leaked CIA documents said al-Qaeda had been operating in Indonesia. Citing a foreign intelligence report, Time said in its Sept. 23 issue that an alleged al-Qaeda senior operative, Omar al-Faruq, admitted he planned to kill Megawati Soekarnoputri in May 1999 when she was running for the presidency.

According to a CIA report referred to by the magazine, Ba'asyir had offered assistance to Faruq for carrying out a recent plan to bomb US embassies in Jakarta and elsewhere in the region.

Lubis said all accusations made against Ba'asyir "must be proven by Indonesian law". US Ambassador to Jakarta Ralph Boyce has said the report was not an official government document, but he has also said al-Qaeda has been active in Indonesia.

Ba'asyir and Habib Riziq Shihab, the FPI leader, were not invited to a dialog between Boyce and representatives of several Islamic organizations held at the headquarters of the country's second largest Muslim group, the Muhammadiyah, in Jakarta on Tuesday. Boyce said at the meeting that Washington had not labeled any Indonesian Muslim groups – including Ba'asyir's Indonesian Mujahidin Council – as international terrorist organizations.

In an interview with private television station SCTV from Surakata earlier on Wednesday, Ba'asyir said he saw Boyce's statement as "an improvement". But he warned Indonesian Muslims to remain cautious of Washington's stance on Islam.

"We still have to be careful because no matter what [Boyce has said] America has made Islam its enemy," he said, adding that Washington should be fair in solving the Middle East crisis. Ba'asyir has denied the presence of terrorist networks in Indonesia and any link to international terrorism.

Earlier, Habib Rizieq Shihab said the protest would also push for Jakarta to be "more active in protecting its citizens in the face of pressure from overseas, including from the United States, who want to turn them into scapegoats".

Several Indonesians have also been arrested or are being sought in the region on suspicion of terrorist links.