Terrorist aid slammed

From combined dispatches

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Separatist rebels from the tsunami-struck province of Aceh yesterday deplored the presence of two Muslim terrorist groups helping survivors, saying they were using aid to push a religious agenda.

The Free Aceh Movement (GAM) said in a statement from its government in exile in Stockholm that the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and the Indonesian Mujahideen Council (MMI), which incudes Laskar Mujahidin, “would squander scarce resources.”

The statement branded the two groups as “criminal organizations” and said they were not welcome in Aceh.

“The actions and words of FPI and MMI contradict Islamic teachings and the tolerance and faith of Acehnese Muslims,” it said.

The self-styled prime minister of the government in exile, Malik Mahmud, told Reuters news agency that their brand of militant Islam was not acceptable in Aceh, which fought Dutch colonialists and Japan’s World War II occupation, and whose campaign is fueled by a centuries-old nationalist movement and not by religion.

“What we don’t like is they make people more confused about the situation under the pretext of giving aid, and give their version of Islam, which we think is very radical,” he said in a telephone interview from Stockholm.

“They say things like the tsunami happened because Indonesia did not accept Shariah law in Aceh,” Mr. Malik said.

More than 150,000 people were killed in the earthquake and ensuing tsunami that hit Aceh and nations throughout the Indian Ocean rim on Dec. 26.

MMI was founded in August 2000 with the avowed aim of promoting the adoption of strict Islamic law in secular Indonesia.

The group’s founder is radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, the suspected leader of Jemaah Islamiah, which authorities say is part of the al Qaeda network.

The FPI was one of many small militant groups that sprang up after the 1998 fall of former President Suharto and made a splash by attacking nightclubs, brothels and other entertainment venues deemed an affront to Islam.

In a related development, Indonesia’s military asked aid groups in tsunami-stricken areas yesterday to create a list of international relief workers — and to report on their movements — claiming the move was needed to protect foreigners.

The request underlined the unease with which Indonesia has faced the growth of the largest aid operation in history, replete with foreign soldiers, civilian humanitarian workers and Muslim terrorist groups in close proximity.

Indonesian authorities have long been wary of foreigners’ presence in the tsunami-stricken Aceh province, where separatists have been fighting government troops for more than 20 years. Foreigners were banned from the province at the northern tip of Sumatra island until the earthquake hit Dec. 26, touching off the tsunami.

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