Cleric Bashir criticizes July 17 Jakarta bombings

Cleric Bashir criticizes July 17 Jakarta bombings+

SOLO, Indonesia, July 26 Kyodo -
Indonesian Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir has criticized recent bomb attacks in
Jakarta allegedly carried out by Muslim militants, saying Indonesia is not a
''war zone.''
''I have the opinion that bombings are only allowed in a war zone. Indonesia is
not a war zone, so I don't agree with the bombings,'' Bashir said in an
interview with Kyodo News.
Bashir, who calls al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden ''a true Islamic warrior,''
said the methods used by the ''the Islamic fighters'' in Indonesia should
change.
Two coordinated suicide bombings in the restaurants of the J.W. Marriott and
Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta on July 17 killed nine people, including the two
suicide bombers, and injured 53 others.
The attack came just days after Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono won a second five-year
term in the July 8 presidential election.
Bashir, who runs the Al-Mukmin Islamic boarding school in Ngruki, Central Java,
from which many Indonesian militants have graduated, again praised Islamic
fighters for their determination to defend Islam but said he does not agree
with ''their method of defending Islam,'' noting they conducted the bombings in
a ''peace zone'' and victimized innocent people.
''Like al-Qaida, they have declared war against America, so they can bomb
Americans...In Indonesia, there has been no declaration of war against America.
That's why, do not bomb here. Instead we have to do things in another way, for
instance, through Islamic propagation and preaching, which are civilized
ways,'' Bashir said.
Bashir, who has denied any involvement in the July 17 bombings, has been
traveling around Indonesia, the world's most populous Islamic country, to
preach Islam.
Indonesian police have detained the parents of Nur Said, a suspected
perpetrator of the July 17 bombings, who live in the village of Katekan in
Central Java. Said, 35, had attended Bashir's Al-Mukmin Islamic school.
Said was a guest in Room 1808 of the JW Marriott Hotel where soon after the
bombings police found an unexploded bomb.
Police say the bomb was identical to those that went off in the two hotels and
contained explosive materials found in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202
people, mostly foreign holidaymakers.
The Indonesian government has said that the devices used in the attacks
indicate that Malaysian Noordin Mohamad Top, one of the world's most-wanted
terrorists, was behind the attacks.
Top is among the most-wanted terrorists in Southeast Asia and is listed as No.
3 on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's wanted list.
==Kyodo