Govt Probes Reports of Anti-Israel Terrorism Plot.
04/08/2006. ABC News Online
Minister Joe Hockey says Australia
was a terrorist target well before
the recent increase in conflict between
Lebanon and Israel. (ABC TV)
[This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200608/s1705726.htm]
Last Update: Friday, August 4, 2006. 8:26am (AEST)
Minister Joe Hockey says Australia was a terrorist target well before the recent increase in conflict between Lebanon and Israel. (ABC TV)
Govt probes reports of anti-Israel terrorism plot
A federal minister says the Government is investigating reports that a group of suicide bombers is being dispatched to attack Jewish interests in countries that support Israel.Newspaper reports say the Jakarta-based Asian Muslim Youth Movement claims the plan is being funded by two Australian-Indonesian businessmen.
Human Services Minister Joe Hockey has told Channel 7 Australia was a terrorist target well before the recent increase in conflict between Lebanon and Israel.
"We are a target, we always have been a target, we probably will be for a very long period of time," he said.
"I can tell you that the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Department for Foreign Affairs are investigating what's reported in the papers today and we're treating it very, very seriously."
© 2006 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
SEE THIS DEFAT LINK. http://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/terrorism/chapter4.html
SEE THIS LINK - INDONESIAN MILITARY TIES WITH ISRAEL.
Israel deserves everyting, it gets in return from Indonesian Islamic Militants, because of its arms dealings with a rogue state like Indonesia.
Southeast Asian jihadis dispatched for global war on Israel
Natalie O'Brien and Stephen Fitzpatrick
04aug06HUNDREDS of Southeast Asian suicide bombers have been dispatched around the world with a mission to attack Jewish interests in countries that support Israel such as Britain, the US and possibly Australia.
The radical Jakarta-based Asian Muslim Youth Movement gave The Australian details of the plot yesterday, claiming it was being funded in part with cash donations from two unnamed Australian-Indonesian businessmen.The leader of the AMYM, Islamist author Suaib Bidu, warned that thousands more jihadis were preparing to join the resistance against Israel and die as"martyrs".
Mr Bidu said a "passing-out" ceremony for more than 3000 jihadis would be held tomorrow in the Indonesian city of Pontianak on the large northern island of Kalimantan.
But only about 200 would be sent immediately to targets aboard, with the remainder being active supporters.
Mr Bidu warned that his group would "monitor" the position of Australia towards Israel's current military operation in southern Lebanon, and that it too could become a target for suicide attacks.
"We have a lot of support, including in Australia, from people who don't believe Israel's attack (on Hezbollah) is just," Mr Bidu said.
Terrorism experts have warned that the radical group had the motivation and the backing to organise such a campaign of terror.
One of the foremost scholars in militant Islam, Zachary Abuza, described the group as a dangerous threat that deserved to be taken seriously.
"These people are willing to martyr themselves and that just feeds on itself," Dr Abuza told The Australian. "Events like this (the Lebanon conflict) are superb tools for recruiting and indoctrinating people."
He said the group had been active in Southeast Asia before and said Israeli sites in the region could be targeted.
Dr Abuza said the move could also have far-reaching ramifications because it gave the Southeast Asian militants the ability to network with jihadis in the Middle East.
Last night, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi said there were fears a "new wave" of terrorists could be generated by the Israeli offensive in Lebanon.
"Muslims are angry even in moderate Muslim countries," said Mr Abdullah, who hosted an emergency meeting of the 57 nations of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.
And in Cairo, the leader of Egypt's extremist Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Mehdi Akef, said he was ready to send 10,000 fighters to Lebanon to battle Israel alongside Hezbollah.
But he admitted the chances were slim that any volunteers from Egypt would reach Lebanon.
"There are enough people but you would need Arab regimes to authorise their deployment or at least turn a blind eye on their departure," Mr Akef said.
The head of the International Centre for Terrorism and Political Violence Research's Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Rohan Gunaratna, said the jihadis in Southeast Asia could quickly develop the capability to carry out their plan in so-called third-country attacks.
Although he said the numbers of recruits were probably being exaggerated to "provoke fear and anxiety", the group should not be underestimated.
Dr Gunaratna said the AMYM had sent fighters to Iraq in the past, albeit in small numbers.
The group has already sent 217 suicide bombers, including 72 Indonesians as well as citizens of six other Southeast Asian nations, to Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, Mr Bidu said.
They include seasoned mujaheddin fighters, some of whom had fought the Soviets in Afghanistan and then the Northern Alliance in the same country.
Mr Bidu said they were on a mission to infiltrate Israel and its allies "with the help of friendly networks".
"They will be charged with destroying infrastructure targets of Israel and its supporters, such as Britain and the US," he said.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qa'ida's second in charge, has already called for Sunni Muslims across the world to wage jihad against Israel.
The move comes as another group of fighters from a separate body known as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) announced it had 200,000 members ready to join the battlefield in southern Lebanon.
"When we apply for passports we say we are going to Singapore or to Mecca, so that we can fulfil our true aims'" FPI spokesman Habib Hasan al-Jufrie said.
He said the FPI held military training courses "at secret locations" every two weeks. The FPI is thought to be involved in gangster activity and extortion and protection rackets in the Indonesian capital. It attracts most of its support through advocating jihad to the nation's Muslim majority.
The AMYM and FPI have been blatant in their past condemnation of the US and its Middle Eastern policies. The AMYM has allegedly previously threatened to attack US interests in Jakarta and has sent fighters to the conflicts in Bosnia and Chechnya.About 40 per cent of the AMYM recruits have military experience in countries including Afghanistan, Thailand, The Philippines, Palestine and Iraq. Those with field experience have learned how to make suicide bombs.
Mr Bidu said the fighters from his movement would not travel to Lebanon "because we don't want to face Israel from the front; we prefer to do it from behind".
A spokesman for the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah, Abu Bakar Bashir, said the cleric "fully supports opposing through jihad".
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As Parents Mourn in Thai Hotel, Muslims Recruit Outside
News By RAN EZER
July 28, 2006BANGKOK — Tsion and Michal Sa'adia were vacationing in this Southeast Asian city last week when an official from the Israeli Embassy in Thailand tracked them down in room 1243 of the Bangkok Palace Hotel.
Before Israeli envoy Idit Shamir, first secretary deputy chief of mission, could deliver the message, Michal was fearing the worst about her son, Liran, a staff sergeant in a special Israeli army unit. "Just tell me he was only injured," the mother said as she ran out of her room toward the embassy staffer.
Her son, in fact, was dead, killed in Lebanon during the fighting with Hezbollah.
In sharp juxtaposition to the tragic scene, a local activist named Mustafa Chigag showed up in the street out front of the hotel where the couple was staying, accompanied by Muslim volunteers. He and his companions addressed the many Muslim guests of the hotel, inviting them to a lecture justifying the fight against Israel in Gaza and in Lebanon, raising donations for the Jihadists and telling all Muslims to join the holy war.
Suaib Dido, one of the leaders of the Indonesian Islamic Youth Movement, announced last week that more than 200 Islamic militants — including 43 Thais, one Singaporean, 57 Filipinos, 36 Malaysians and 72 Indonesians — already had signed up to fly to the Middle East to fight Israel.
"This is purely a fight to help our brothers in Palestine and Lebanon," Dido said.
The Thais and Malaysians already had started their journey to the Middle East, according to Dido's announcement published by news agencies in Indonesia. Earlier this month, Abu Bakar Bashir, the Indonesian-based spiritual leader, also issued a call for Muslims to head to the Middle East. His call followed Israeli operations in Gaza.
As Muslims in the region recruited militants to fight, the Sa'adias were mourning the death of their son.
After receiving the terrible news, the parents stayed in their room accompanied by friends from their city who had joined them on their tour. The hotel room door was kept open, in accordance with the Jewish mourning tradition. Tsion, the father, started crying first and later supported Michal, the mother, whose tears did not stop. The Sa'adias said that Liran recently had the option to change units, but insisted on being posted with his old team.
According to his loved ones, Liran may have felt that something bad was going to happen, as he recently had called many family members as if to say goodbye.
As for his parents, they said that they had a bad feeling since the first day of their vacation. Liran told them at that time that he was being sent to Lebanon. Tsion started sitting on the floor like a traditional Jewish mourner some time before Liran's death, without even knowing why.
The fastest way home was a Royal Jordanian flight Friday night, July 21. They arrived the next morning at 4 a.m. in Amman, where a representative of the Israeli Embassy in Jordan accompanied them on a plane back home. The Israeli government paid all expenses.
MIDDLE EAST: JIHADISTS FROM SOUTH EAST ASIA TAKE UP FIGHT AGAINST ISRAEL
Jakarta, 20 July (AKI)Some 200 Islamist extremists mostly from Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand have enrolled to fight against Israel in the Middle East, a top official of a radical Indonesian Muslim organisation said Thursday. The Islamic Youth Movement's Suaib Didu, told Adnkronos International (AKI) that he was aware of 217 jihadists who were traveling to the Middle East.
The Islamic Youth Movement which claims to have 30,000 members is know for its strident anti-American stance. Suaib is also deputy-president of the Asian Muslim Youth Secretariat, of which little information exists.
"It is all true. Militants from Malaysia and Thailand departed yesterday. Indonesians will leave soon," Suaib said.
He said he had met 12 of the Indonesian militants last week in a house in Jakarta's Tebet district. News of the meeting was first reported on Wednesday by the Detikom Internet portal, which often carries the views of radical groups.
Suaib's meeting with the militants was aimed at finalising travel arrangements and to inform the militants on the significance of Jihad, or holy war, he said.
"We don't want their jihad to be used later to damage the name of Islam," he said adding that the militant's objective was to bomb Israeli and American targets around the world.
"These will not be suicide bombs but jihad bombs," Suaib said.
According to Suaib the militants have chosen to operate under the name "Palestine Jihad Bombing Troops". The group includes 72 Indonesians, 57 Filipinos, 36 Malaysians, 43 Thais, five militants from Brunei, three from Bangladesh and one from Singapore.
Some of the militants are veterans of the anti-Soviet uprising in Afghanistan in the 1980s, Suaib said.
He also said that the militants mission has not been sanctioned by the Indonesian government and that the fighters "have no links to the terrorist groups that have caused disarray in Indonesia".
"This is purely a fight to help our brothers in Palestine and Lebanon," he said.
In a separate development 90 militants from the Islamic Defenders Front, a group based in Indonesia's Aceh province have also said they are ready to fight in the Middle East and die as "martyrs".
(Fsc/Aki)
Jul-20-06 10:50
Asian Youth Movements: here to stay, here to fight
(British Article)
Red Pepper Society
A Sivanandan
June 2005
Racism never stands still. It is never of a piece. It changes its shape, its inscape, its function with changes in the economic system, the social forces that the system throws up and the hegemonic culture it exudes. Equally, the resistance to racism, the struggle against it, and the organisations that spring up to carry on that struggle also change. And nowhere is this clearer than in the struggles of the Asian community against the various avatars of racism: the crude racism of the working class, the genteel racism of the middle class, and the violent racism of the fascists. Each of these in turn had its own trajectory and was fought in terms of its own particularities. But they also had repercussions in, and the engagement of, the community, so creating both communal solidarity and continuity of struggle. Thus the first-generation struggles of Asian workers on the factory floor, against trade union racism in particular, forced them to resort to unofficial strikes which needed the economic support and the political solidarity of the community.
Similarly, the racism meted out to middle-class African-Caribbeans and Asians in terms of discrimination in jobs, housing etc., though fought largely on the basis of lobbies, petitions and commissions of inquiry, resulted in equal opportunities policies and the Race Relations Acts.
But the struggle against racial violence which, in the Paki-bashing era of the '60s had itself been ad hoc and defensive, was in the late '70s transformed by the organised violence of the National? Front (NF) against the Asian community into organised militancy against it by Asian Youth Movements.
Significantly, it was the racist murder of 18-year-old Gurdip Singh Chaggar (in June 1976) in the heart of Southall ? right opposite the Dominion Cinema, a symbol of Asian self reliance and security ? that triggered off the militant politics of the Asian youth. A number of lost self defence cases had convinced the youth that there was no point in looking to the police or the courts for protection, let alone justice. And they saw the invasion of Southall as a violation too many. A meeting was held and the elders went about it in the time-honoured way, passing resolutions, making statements. The youth, however, marched to the police station demanding redress, stoning a police van en route. The police arrested two of them. The demonstrators sat down before the police station and refused to move until their fellows were released. They were released. The following day the Southall Youth Movement (SYM) was born, and the cry of 'Self defence is no offence' gave way to 'Here to stay, here to fight'.
Police harassment and fascist violence, boosted by Thatcher's 'this country might be rather swamped by people of a different culture' speech and her partiality for state thuggery to resolve civic problems, led also to the formation of similar Asian youth organisations and defence committees in London, Manchester, Leicester, Bradford, Nottingham, Sheffield, Burnley and Birmingham. Several of them sprang up in London alone - in Brick Lane after the murder of Altab Ali and Ishaque Ali, in Hackney after the murder of Michael Ferreira, in Newham after the murder of Akhtar Ali Baig. And, like the Black strike committees of an earlier period, the youth groups moved around aiding and supporting each other ? joining and working with African-Caribbean groups in the process, sometimes on an organisational basis (SYM and Peoples Unite, Bradford Blacks and Bradford AYM), sometimes as individuals coalescing into political groups such as Hackney Black People's Defence Organisation and Bradford's United Black Youth League. (See A. Sivanandan, 'From resistance to rebellion' in A Different Hunger, Pluto, 1983)
Of these, the landmark case was that of the Bradford 12 (in 1982), the trial of twelve Asian youth who made petrol bombs to defend their community against an impending attack by the NF, and were charged with conspiring to make explosives with intent to endanger life. But their plea of community self-defence was accepted by the jury and all twelve were acquitted.
Of course there were differences in the composition of the groups and in the larger politics they espoused. In general, the AYMs grew out of local friendship groups (or gangs) formed in schools and clubs. In some cases the movement consisted predominantly of one group e.g. Punjabi Sikh in Southall, Bengali Sylheti in Tower Hamlets. But in Birmingham and Bradford the AYMs were more diverse, crossing not just regional and religious divides but, more significantly, because they included in their number young Asians who arrived with a political (Marxist) background via a disillusionment with 'White Left' politics, political divides as well.
Left politics, usually Trotskyist, had frustrated its young Asian recruits by the way it had subsumed race to class and the fight against racism to the ideological fight against fascism. They lived class, but felt race: racism invaded their lives. It was their most plangent experience ? and out of that experience came the undertaking to fight racism and, therefore, fascism, not fascism and perhaps racism. But it was they who were instrumental in bringing to the youth movements an understanding of class, state power and international solidarity. And it was this infusion that broadened what were originally parochial ethnically-based movements into a larger Black politics. Though they mobilised in terms of the specific way that racism impacted on their communities, in the fight-back they were Black. This unique sense of Black as a political colour like Red (rather than a skin colour) had emerged in Britain at the end of the '60s from a common history of colonial oppression, a common experience of racism and a common fight against it. And the 'international' interest that the first generation had in their home countries, e.g. fighting Mrs Gandhi's Emergency or Pakistan's military dictatorship, was now reincarnated as a solidarity with oppressed groups from Jerusalem to Johannesburg.
What the AYMs (with the honourable exception of Manchester) failed to address, however, was the sexism in their ranks and the patriarchal structure of their organisations. Subsequently, their active participation in anti-deportation and family reunification campaigns, mainly women and children, helped some of them to recognise their shortcomings in this area.
In sum, the Asian Youth Movements cut across cultural boundaries and religious divides. Born, by and large, in Britain, to working-class parents, whose customs were arcane and religion a refuge, the second/third generation tended to be secular of outlook and political of culture. The fight against racism was not a fight for culture. Conversely, the fight for culture did nothing to combat racism.
But Lord Scarman in his report on the 'Brixton disorders' of 1981 put ethnic disadvantage as the cause of the riots. The solution for which was 'positive action' on the part of local and central government to improve the lot of disadvantaged ethnic groups. Which in practice took the form of equal opportunities policies and ethnic head-counts for the up-coming Blacks and a 'samosa and steel-band' culturalism, replete with community centres for the up-rising Blacks. The former led to fights for office and descended into equal opportunism, the latter served to break down political black into its cultural constituents scrabbling for ethnic hand-outs. Already, an unofficial laissez-faire multiculturalism had begun to make inroads into the anti-racist movement. Scarman now made it official. In one stroke he had dismissed institutional racism and institutionalised multiculturalism in its stead.
It only remained for the Rushdie affair (1989-93) and the consequent upsurge of anti-Muslim racism to break down the secularism of the youth movements and drive them into the alley-ways of their parents? religion.
But in the long fight against racism, AYMs have left their mark, most importantly in the matter of turning cases into issues and issues into a movement - a legacy which has been taken up by the Stephen Lawrence Family Campaign and has served to place? institutional racism, once more, at the heart of anti-racist struggle.
A. Sivanandan, activist and writer in and about struggles over race, was editor of Race Today. He is founder editor of Race and Class and director of the Institute of Race Relations
This article appears as part of a supplement archving the history of the Asian Youth Movements in the June 2005 issue of Red Pepper. For more details on the archive see http://www.tandana.org/
