Bashir Faces Bomb Charges

Cirebon. Hard-line cleric Abu Bakar Bashir may face fresh charges tied to the Cirebon mosque suicide attack, a police general said on Thursday.

“We are looking into the possibility of adding charges over the Cirebon bombing,” National Police Densus 88 Antiterrorism Chief Brig. Gen. M. Syafii said. “We need time and have to coordinate with the prosecutor.”

Syafii was commenting after National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Anton Bachrul Alam told a press conference here on Thursday that a suspected terrorist group behind the bombing at the Cirebon Police mosque had a direct connection to Bashir.

“Even Muchammad Syarif, the suicide bomber, was a member of JAT in Cirebon,” Anton said, referring to Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid, a radical Islamic group founded by Bashir. “He was directly sworn in by Abu Bakar Bashir together with nine other people in Tasikmalaya, West Java, in 2008.”

The cleric is now on trial and could face up to life in jail in prison if convicted of leading fund-raising efforts for a paramilitary camp in Aceh.

Anton said Syarif was influenced by Bashir as well as two leaders of Cirebon’s JAT chapter, Agung Nur Alam, a k a Abu Husama, and Aman Abdurrahman. Aman was convicted for involvement in the outlawed Aceh paramilitary network.

The group wanted the country to be ruled by Shariah law, he said, as well as urging members to attack mosques belonging to the government and to engage in robbery to finance jihad.

Anton said Syarif learned bomb-making from Sigit Qurdowi, the commander of Laskar Hisbah, believed to be the armed wing of JAT, in Surakarta. Sigit was killed by police last week.

At the press conference, police also played a two-minute video recovered from Syarif’s cellphone. “I will win in this war. I will kill all goverment officials, the infidels, as I have killed the Army official,” Syarif is seen saying in the video. He had been wanted for the murder of an army official in Cirebon earlier this year.

In the video, he also sent greetings to Noordin M. Top, a key terrorist slain in 2009, whom Syarif said had come to him in a dream, inviting him to join his force in jihad. He also said he had dreamed of meeting slain Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

Police are now searching for at least 15 pipe bombs, as well as components for bombs and firearms believed to belong to Syarif’s network.

“From information we extracted from the suspects [arrested over the bombing], we know that they will take revenge on the police and army. But there is still no exact time and location where they will launch their attacks,” a police source told the Jakarta Globe on Thursday.

National Anti-Terrorism (BNPT) Deputy Chief Brig. Gen. Petrus Golose said the bombing was evidence that terror networks were now changing their targets from Western interests to local officials.

“We are categorized by them as their enemies since we are considered as posing a barrier to them waging their jihad,” Petrus told the press conference.

Police, who have already arrested 13 suspects over a series of recent bombings, including in Cirebon, on Thursday said they were hunting five other men in connection with the Cirebon attack — Achmad Yosepa Hayat, thought to be the next suicide bomber; Beni Asri, wanted for sheltering a fugitive; bomb-maker Heru Komaruddin; bomb instructor Nanang Irawan, alias Ndut; and Yadi, alias Hasan.

(x the JG)