A Central Queensland University Internet survey has revealed significant background information on the terrorist groups who may be behind the nightclub bombing in Bali.

The study, by Kasun Ubayasiri, a postgraduate researcher on media and terrorism, shows extensive South-east Asian media coverage, including some articles sighting Jemaah Islamiah’s Operations Chief Riduan Isamuddin as the next Osama bin Laden, and detailed research on a number of groups including the key suspect – Jemaah Islamiah. While wide spread use of the Internet by Islamic terrorist groups such as the Hizbollah have been researched and documented, the survey failed to uncover any active sites for the groups that reportedly could be behind this week’s bombing.

Suspects.

Jemaah Islamiah: a violent terrorist organisation aimed at forming Daulah Islamiah Raya – new Islamic state which would include Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Sultanate of Brunei, the South Philippines, Thailand and Cambodia.

The organisation is believed have close ties with other Islamic fundamentalist groups in the region, including the Philippine-based Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and Abu Sayyaf, the Malaysian group Kumpulan Majelis Muhajideen and Laska Jihad in Indonesia.

The group is known to have links with Al Qaeda, and is believed to be familiar with a range of explosives including C4. It is also known to be linked to a number of attacks against Christians in the region and the ‘west’ in general.

In the mid 1990s the group was allegedly promoted in the region by Bojinka – one of Osama bin Laden’s brothers-in-law.

Before his death, Abdullah Sungkar the man who claimed to be the group’s leader publicly admitted the group had evolved from Darul Islam, a violent movement which tried to establish an Islamic state in Java in the 50s.

Riduan Isamuddin (Hambali): is believed to be the Operations Chief and founder member of Jemaah Islamiah, and could be considered a key suspect in the nightclub bombings.

Hambali, an Indonesian cleric, is a close associate of Abu Bakar Bashir – a vocal supporter of Osama bin Laden, and is wanted in a number of South-east Asian countries including Indonesia. Hambali is know to have met September 11 hijackers Khalid al Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi in Kuala Lumpur, and is believed to have assisted in planing the New York bombings.

Hambali is also linked to: the 1993 World Trade Centre bombers Wali Kahn and Ramzi Yousef, and U.S.S Cole suspect and September 11 hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui. He is considered the mastermind behind a series of more than 20 church bombings in Indonesia and the Philippines – killing about 35 people at the Jakarta Catholic cathedral and various churches throughout Sumatra, Java and Lombok during Christmas 2000.

One of 13 children born to a relatively poor but religious family in the West Javanese village, Sukamanah, in 1966, Hambali received religious schooling at a very early age at a school founded by his grandfather.

He suffered religious oppression under the Suharto dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s, and fought alongside the Mujahideen against the Russian invading forces in Afghanistan in the 80s after forging links with anti-Suharto Islamic fundamentalists while in exile in Malaysia. In 1990 Abubakar Bashir and Hambali formed the Jemaah Islamiah, which has over the years developed into the Al Qaeda’s South-east Asian wing.

Abu Bakar Bashir (Ba\'asyir) : is considered a founding member of Jemaah Islamiah, a claim Bashir has denied. Bashir has openly sided with Osama bin Laden calling him a true Muslim and has accused the Americans of waging war not against terror but Islam. The 63-year-old cleric, whose formal education stopped when he dropped out of Sharia law school to preach, has risen to be a key spiritual leader in the South-east Asian Jihad.

In the 1960s, Bashir operated pirate radio stations broadcasting the call to Jihad across Central Java. Bashir was later jailed for trying to start an Islamic militia from1978 to 1982, and later lived in self-imposed exile in Malaysia with friend Abdullah Sungkar. Bashir returned to Indonesia following Suharto’s fall in May 1998 and together with Sungkar formed the Indonesian Mujahideen Council (MMI) – an umbrella group for organisations wanting to make Indonesia an Islamic state. Since Abdullah Sungkar’s death, Bashir has taken over the group’s leadership.

Bashir, unlike his associate Hambali, has not been directly implicated in any terrorist crimes and continues his work as a radical preacher in Indonesia. Laskar Jihad – ‘Holy War Warriors’: founded by Jafar Umar Thalib in 2000 is a militant group based in Indonesia aimed at forming a fundamentalist Islamic state in the region. Jafar Umar Thalib spent several years studying in Pakistan and fighting alongside the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, and is a known associate of Abu Bakar Bashir, Riduan Isamuddin, and is also believed to be linked with Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda Intelligence agencies believe Laskar Jihad to be funded by a number of Islamic countries including Saudi Arabia, Libya and Afghanistan, and remains the largest and most organized militant Muslim organization in Indonesia.

The group is believed to be a key player in the 2000 Muslim-Christian clashes in the eastern Indonesian islands, and is believed to have sent around 5,000 armed militia men to the Moluccas region.

The Laskar Jihad see Christians as kafir harbi ‘belligerent infidels’ – the most dangerous group of non-Muslims which give them a religious basis to kill Christians. However the group claims they are a non-violent organization focused in social work, education and protection of Islam.

More information: Time (2002) Asia\'s Own Osama : by Simon Elegant and Sungei Manggis [on-line]. Available: www.time.com/time/asia/features/ malay_terror/hambali.html Zakis, Jeremy (2002) Emerging Asian Threat: Riduan Isamuddin (Hambali) -The Next Terrorist Mastermind?? [on-line]. Available: http://www.emergency.com/2002/hambali.htm Huang, Reyko (2002). In the spot: Jemaah Islamiah [on-line]. Available: http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/ji.cfm Jemaah Islamiah news archive (2002) [on-line]. Available: http://jemaahislamiah.newstrove.com/ Murphy Dan (2002) [on-line]. Available: http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0130/p01s01-woap.html Huang, Reyko (2002). In the spot: Laskar Jihad [on-line]. Available: http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/laskar.cfm Laskar Jihad news archive (2002) [on-line]. Available: http://laskarjihad.newstrove.com/ Photo: AFP