SE Asian Muslims Say They Will Join Hizballah's Fight By Patrick Goodenough CNSNews.com International Editor July 24, 2006
(CNSNews.com) - Muslims in Southeast Asia are protesting Israel's offensive against Hizballah, and in Indonesia, Islamists reportedly were registering as "volunteers" to travel to the region to fight against the Jewish state.
The foreign ministry in Jakarta said it knew of no Indonesians who had yet left the country headed for the Middle East, although spokesman Desra Percaya said it was aware that some were prepared to do so.
He said while he understood Indonesian Muslims' feeling of "sympathy and solidarity" for the Lebanese and Palestinians, there was no need for Indonesians to volunteer to fight. What the Palestinians and Lebanese needed was humanitarian assistance.
The Aceh division of an organization called the Islamic Defenders' Front (FPI) claims to have signed up more than 90 volunteers for a "jihad," state Antara news agency reported.
"We are ready to be sent to Palestine and Lebanon as volunteers and martyr fighters to fight Israel," the group's chairman, Yusuf Al Qadrawi, told journalists.
He said the applicants from Aceh would join others in Jakarta before heading for the Middle East.
According to other Indonesian media reports, Suaib Didu, the head of an Islamic students group, said 217 volunteers calling themselves Palestine Jihad Bombing Troops were planning to travel to Lebanon to join Hizballah's fight.
A group of 12 volunteers dressed in black and wearing balaclavas were presented at a press conference in Jakarta, where Suaib said the larger group included Muslims from across Southeast Asia - Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Brunei, Singapore and Bangladesh.
He said the plan had not been sanctioned by the Indonesian government.
The Jakarta Post quoted a Muslim scholar, Azyumardi Azra, as saying the volunteers would do better by helping Indonesian "earthquake and tsunami survivors and people living in poverty."
Prof. Zachary Abuza, a specialist in South-East Asia terrorism at Simmons College in Boston, said Indonesian radicals had threatened in the past to go to Iraq to fight against the Americans, but "few actually made it."
This time it could be different, he wrote on the Counterterrorism Blog website.
"Southeast Asian Islamists and jihadists are always seeking to bring the Islamic periphery into the Muslim core, and convince their Arab coreligionists that they are true Muslims. There is no better way to prove their Islamic faith than to fight against Israel in the Holy Land," Abuza said.
"Second, jihadists across southeast Asia have been seeking for ways to both recruit anew and to tap into more mainstream Islamist movements."
Thousands of Indonesians protested Sunday against Israel, burning Israeli and U.S. flags and calling on their government to urge the U.N. to intervene to stop the violence. Demonstrators at one protest, in South Sulawesi, called for jihad and for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono wrote to U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan, saying Indonesia was prepared to contribute troops to a U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, an offer also made by Indonesia's ambassador to the U.N. at an open session of the Security Council on Friday.
Yudhoyono has also called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hizballah.
Indonesia's Muslim neighbor, Malaysia, also offered to send troops to a U.N. peacekeeping mission.
Malaysia currently chairs the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which said the crisis was "caused by the continuous Israeli aggression on Lebanon." The 56-state OIC has also called Israel's actions "a threat to international peace and security."
In Kuala Lumpur, hundreds of protestors outside the U.S. Embassy burned Israeli flags and chanted "Death to Israel." Neither Malaysia nor Indonesia has diplomatic relations with Israel.
Llater this week, Kuala Lumpur will play host to ministers from 25 Asian and Pacific Rim nations meeting for the region's biggest security conference.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was earlier scheduled to participate, although it remains unclear whether she will attend, given her Mideast diplomatic mission, which starts on Monday.
(CNSNews.com) - An Iraqi Shi'ite militia, the Mahdi Army, reportedly is forming a squadron of up to 1,500 elite fighters to go to Lebanon to fight Israel. The Washington Times said the plan shows how the fighting between Israel and Hizballah may strengthen radical groups in Iraq and neighboring countries and draw other regional players into the Lebanon conflict. "We are choosing the men right now," said a follower of radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
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