This story has been percolating through the Australian media for the past few days.
THE arrival in Aceh of militant Islamic fundamentalist groups has raised the prospect of conflict with foreign aid workers and troops, including Australians, who are helping the tsunami relief operation. Indonesian and Australian authorities have claimed the Islamist organisations do not pose an immediate threat, and that the Indonesian military (TNI) can provide sufficient security.
But this was the claim made in East Timor in 1999, when the TNI actively supported militias. There are some parallels with Aceh.
The leader of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) has already threatened foreigners by saying un-Islamic behaviour in public, such as drinking alcohol, will not be tolerated. The even more militant Laskar Mujahidin (LM), which is also in Aceh, has engaged in sectarian warfare against Christians in Ambon and Central Sulawesi.
The presence of these organisations in Aceh has disturbed many Acehnese, not least the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which has rejected them as corrupting Islam. While GAM members are devout Sunni Muslims, GAM itself is not an Islamic organisation and it rejects Islamic fundamentalism.
See also, "Indonesia warns on safety of aid workers in Aceh."
But the New York Times has a different take.
Black-jacketed volunteers from one of Indonesia's most militant Muslim groups scraped away the clammy mud that clung to the walls and floors of a badly damaged house here on Sunday. They moved the once handsome dining room chairs outside to dry.
In a few days, they said, the owner of the house, Azman Ismail, an imam at Banda Aceh's central mosque, would be able to move back in.
The men, members of Lasker Mujahedeen, a paramilitary group that has fought Christians elsewhere in Indonesia and has had links to Al Qaeda, are among hundreds of Indonesian Islamic militants who have come to Aceh in the name of helping their fellow Muslims, they say, to offer a dose of Islamic teachings to the already devout Acehnese, and to recruit members.
Ah, but keep reading:
For the moment, the militants say they are willing to tolerate the work of the Americans, whom they usually denounce as infidels and imperialistic occupiers of Muslim nations."As long as the American soldiers' involvement is for humanitarian reasons, they are welcome," said Imam Salman al-Farisi, the leader of the 80 volunteers of Majelis Mujahedeen Indonesia here. Majelis Mujahedeen is an umbrella organization of militant groups founded by Abu Bakar Bashir, who is on trial, charged with organizing the terror attack in Bali in October 2002. Mr. Bashir is the leader of the terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, which is blamed in the Bali bombings and the attack on the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in 2003.
But the imam added a caveat. "If there are intelligence people among the American soldiers, I believe Allah will smash the United States."
