LAKSAMANA.Net, October 22, 2002 08:32 AM
Bashir's Health Improves
October 22, 2002 08:32 AM
Laksamana.Net - Radical Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who allegedly received
$74,000 from Osama bin Laden to buy the explosives used in the deadly Bali
bombings, remains hospitalized in Solo, Central Java, but his physical condition is
said to be improving.
Bashir, who denies any links to terrorism, has been at the Muhammadiyah Hospital in
Solo, Central Java, since Friday for breathing and heart problems. He is being treated
by a cardiologist, a lung specialist and an internist.
"His condition is now better compared to when he was first brought here last Friday,"
Dr Ariswati, one of the doctors, told reporters at the hospital.
"Bashir is now able to talk and sit up, but he sometimes still has to breath through a
respirator," she said.
Scores of hardline Islamic students remain gathered outside the hospital, vowing to
prevent authorities from taking the 64-year-old cleric to a police hospital in Jakarta.
Ali Usman, one of the students from Bashir's Islamic boarding school, said the cleric
would be released from hospital by Wednesday or Thursday, and would then go to
Jakarta in compliance with a police summons.
Police placed Bashir under arrest on Saturday after he failed to appear in Jakarta for
questioning. He is charged with treason and involvement in a spate of bombings –
although Indonesian authorities are yet to directly link him to the October 12 Bali
bombings.
Bashir, who is the spiritual leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah group, is a sworn admirer
of Osama bin Laden, but denies any involvement in the Al-Qaeda network.
Detained Al-Qaeda operative Omar al-Faruq, who was based in Indonesia for several
years, has reportedly told the CIA that bin Laden sent $74,000 to Bashir earlier this
year to buy the explosives used in the Bali bombings.
Bashir allegedly passed the money on to his aides to illegally buy three tons of
explosives from contacts in the Indonesian military.
Al-Faruq has also said there were two attempts by Muslim radicals to assassinate
President Megawati Sukarnoputri, but the first plot failed because the group could not
obtain guns, while the second attempt failed because the would-be assassin blew his
leg off at a Jakarta mall.
Britain's The Sunday Times said al-Faruq also told the CIA of other plots, including:
the random shooting of Israelis and Americans at hotels in Indonesia; hijacking a
civilian aircraft and flying it into an Israeli target; blowing up American warships in May
during a US-Indonesian naval exercise, by planting underwater explosives; and an
attack using cyanide, sprayed from perfume bottles.
Bomb Details
After Indonesian police on the weekend claimed three bombs caused the carnage that
destroyed two Bali nightclubs on October 12, Australian Federal Police officers at the
site now say only two bombs were used.
Investigators say the main bomb, which went off outside the Sari Club, was made of a
combination of C-4 plastic explosives and ammonium nitrate, which has been used
before in bombings allegedly carried out by Jemaah Islamiyah in Southeast Asia.
Singapore officials say that 13 Jemaah Islamiyah members arrested last December
had planned to buy 17 tons of ammonium nitrate to make seven massive truck bombs
to target US, Israeli, Australian and other Western targets.
Ammonium nitrate is a fertilizer agent and is often used by amateur and professional
bomb-making enthusiasts. The bomb outside the Sari Club contained between 50
kilograms and 150 kilograms of ammonium nitrate, mixed with C-4.
The second Bali bomb, which went off inside Paddy's Irish Bar, apparently contained
less than 1 kilogram of TNT. Investigators say this bomb might have been designed to
make people flee onto the street, just before the bigger blast, to maximize the death
toll.
A third bomb, which went off near the office of the US Consulate in Bali and caused
no casualties, reportedly contained less than 1 kilogram of TNT.
Wahid Versus Wahid
Indonesia's moderate Muslim organizations have welcomed efforts by authorities to
crack down on Jemaah Islamiyah and other extremist Islamic groups, which represent
only a small minority of the country's 170 million Muslims.
Former president Abdurrahman ‘Gus Dur' Wahid, the spiritual leader of the 40
million-member Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) group, on Monday said Bashir is a terrorist and
should have been arrested long ago.
But Gus Dur's younger brother Solahuddin Wahid, who is also an executive of the NU,
visited Bashir in hospital on Monday and said it was unethical for any individual or
group to be accused of responsibility for the Bali bombings until the case had been
resolved in court.
"We can't pinpoint any group as being the culprit behind the Bali bombings. Whoever
is suspected of being behind the tragedy should be investigated. But we can't blame a
certain group only on the basis of assumption," he said.
"Everybody should abide by the principles of presumption of innocence," he added.
Solahuddin denied his visit to Bashir was an offer of moral support to the suspected
terrorist.
"Today I was in Yogyakarta to speak at a discussion. I had some spare time and
decided to use it to visit Bashir," he said, adding the cleric's health had improved.
Solahuddin said he asked Bashir for his thoughts on the Bali bombings. "I asked him
whether or not he agreed with such action. Bashir said he did not, especially because
it was against the teachings of Islam," he said.
Bashir has blamed the bombings on the US and expressed no sympathy for those
who died in the "sinful nightclubs".
He has merely said their families should "convert to Islam as soon as possible".
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