Christopher Bodeen, Banda Aceh – In this tsunami-ravaged Indonesian city, the streets couldn't seem safer. Rifle-toting Indonesian soldiers patrol while children head off to school. Shoppers cram makeshift markets, and unarmed troops from foreign powers deliver aid.
But the United Nations is pushing ahead with plans to fortify the headquarters of its relief effort in Banda Aceh for survivors of the December 26 earthquake and tsunami.
While UN officials say they aren't worried about an attack, the tighter security underscores an uneasiness about the prospect of disorder in an area that has been a battleground for government and separatist rebel forces for nearly three decades.
Bo Asplund, the top UN official in Indonesia, says the new security measures announced this week are only natural for a staff of roughly 100 that is settling in and focusing on long-term rebuilding. But he quickly adds: "We usually, like most aid agencies, don't talk much about our security matters."
Aceh province, on the northern tip of Sumatra island, is mostly peaceful, except for the occasional clashes between government troops and separatist rebels in areas far from the tsunami relief effort.
But the longer aid workers stay, the more they'll be exposed to a host of possible concerns, ranging from a flare-up of the Free Aceh Movement separatist insurgency to Islamic fundamentalist groups that might view foreign aid workers as proselytizing foot-soldiers of the West.
US government officials and security analysts point to the Saudi Arabian-based International Islamic Relief Organization as one potential worry.
Though its leaders deny any ties to terrorism, the group propagates the strict Wahhabist interpretation of Islam that is considered the bedrock for Islamic extremism and a guiding force for the Saudi-born al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
Indonesian troops also draw their fair share of suspicion. The country's military is routinely accused of human rights abuses, and its gunbattles with Acehnese separatist rebels has left tens of thousands of people dead since fighting broke out in 1976.
Indonesian forces even attacked the UN compound in East Timor in 1999, after the people of the former Indonesian province voted for independence.
The UN compound in Aceh would be particularly vulnerable if attacked. The bloc of buildings has a college campus feel to it. On a recent afternoon, nobody checked identification as people streamed in and out. Only UN-authorized vehicles were allowed to enter the premises, but others parked directly outside the gates, in front of buildings housing officials.
Since an Aug. 19, 2003, bombing at the UN headquarters in Iraq killed 22 people, including top envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello, UN officials have sought to boost security for their staff worldwide.
That threat is very real in Indonesia, where al-Qaida-linked suicide car bombers have targeted Westerners three times in the past three years, most recently bombing the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in September 2004. Local and foreign governments have repeatedly warned that the militants are planning more attacks.
Joel Boutroue, UN deputy humanitarian coordinator in Aceh, cited the "structural weaknesses" of the UN compound in Banda Aceh and said more security checks would be implemented.
US aid groups show little of the concern that grips UN officials. "We're more worried about [earthquake] aftershocks," said Mike Kiernan, a spokesman for the charity Save the Children.
Some militant groups in Aceh don't hide their resentment of outsiders – or their desire to safeguard their faith. The Islamic group Laksar Mujahidin's 60 volunteers have spent weeks performing the grim task of collecting bodies and giving tsunami victims a religious burial.
Abu Anshar, a wiry 30-year-old and part-time trader who acts as the group's spokesman, said reports of foreigners wearing crosses and complaints of missionary activity have aroused their suspicions that aid groups intend to convert Muslims. In other parts of Indonesia, the group has fought deadly battles with Christian militias.
"If they [foreign troops and aid workers] stay here for very long, there is the possibility of something happening as in other Muslim countries – such as Iraq," said Anshar, at his group's base in a farmhouse near the city's airport. "We are the troops. We await orders from central command," he said.
However, Sidney Jones, an expert on Indonesian terrorist groups with the International Crisis Group in Singapore, believes groups like the Laksar Mujahidin are more talk than action. They enjoy little support among the Acehnese Muslims, who practice a tolerant form of the faith and have welcomed foreign aid groups, she said. "Even for them, attacking aid missions would be going too far," Jones said.