JAKARTA (Agencies): Two
leaders of Muslim militant groups on Monday accused the U.S. of
being behind the deadly Bali bomb blasts that killed at least 187
people over the weekend.
However, no evidence was offered to support their accusations.
"We deplore and condemn the masterminds, fund raisers and
whoever was involved in the bomb explosions in Bali," said
Habib Rizieq Shihab, leader of the Islam Defenders Front (FPI), a
Muslim militant group best known for its frequent attacks on bars,
and other nightspots in Jakarta.
"The incident could be used as reason for the United
States and its allies to justify their accusations that Indonesia
is a terrorist network base," Shihab said as quoted by DPA.
Two massive explosions ripped through packed discos on Jl.
Legian street in Kuta, a well-known entertainment strip in Bali,
shortly before midnight on Saturday, killing at least 187 people
and injuring another 300 others.
Meanwhile, Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, chairman of another militant
group the Indonesian Mujahidin Council (MMI), also accused the
U.S. of being behind the explosions in Bali.
"The U.S. intelligence agency is behind the Bali bombings
in an attempt to justify their accusation that Indonesia is a
terrorist base," said Abu Bakar, suspected to be the leader
of Jema'ah Islamiyah (JI), a group that allegedly plans to
establish a pan-Islamic state in Southeast Asia.
Dozens of JI members have been arrested in Singapore and
Malaysia, where the group has been accused of having links with
the al-Qaeda international terrorist organization headed by Osama
bin Laden.
Indonesia, which abolished its draconian internal security act
in 1998, has refused to arrest Ba'asyir on the grounds that there
is no evidence that he has committed crimes in Indonesia.
Abu Bakar warned the Indonesian government and security
officials not to be trapped in the U.S.'s strategy, and to refrain
from declaring that a terrorist network exists in the country.
More than 85 per cent of Indonesia's 215 million people are
Muslims, making it the world's most populous Islamic nation and
making crackdowns on Muslim radicals a very political issue for
the government.
The government of President Megawati Soekarnoputri has been
widely criticized for failing to crack down on terrorist suspects
in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S.
Many Indonesian Muslim clerics and academics on Monday were
raising questions about who could be behind the Bali tragedy,
which has seemingly justified a stronger government stance against
terrorists and their sympathizers.
"Such a car bomb blast could be linked to the work of
foreigners, especially the U.S. in a bid to attack hard-line
groups deemed as terrorists," said M. Budyatna, a noted
political observer and former dean of social and political studies
at the University of Indonesia.
"The terrorist label is intentionally given to Muslims in
Indonesia in a bid to justify its hypothesis and in the hope of
stigmatizing Indonesia in the eyes of international
community," said another political expert Nadjamuddin
Muhammad Rasul.
But moderate Muslim cleric Hasjim Muzadi, chairman of the
Indonesia's largest Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU),
said that the blasts ran counter to Islamic values, humanism and
nationalism.
"The bloody blast is really inflicting sorrow on the
bereaved families and runs counter to the country's unity and good
relations with other nations in the world," Antara
quoted Muzadi as saying.
