[Kabar-indonesia] Indonesia nabs suspected couriers for top terrorist fugitive: report

[Joyo at aol.com]

also: Terrorism more local than global: Australian experts

Indonesia nabs suspected couriers for top terrorist
fugitive: report

JAKARTA, November 1 (AFP) -- Indonesia's anti-terrorist
police arrested three Malaysians suspected of being couriers
for fugitive Noordin Mohammad Top in East Java province, a
report said Wednesday.

The trio were arrested Monday in the isolated village of
Wonosalam, Jombang district police chief, Dwi Setiadi, told
ElShinta radio.

The report gave no names but said the men were suspected of
being couriers for Noordin, a Malaysian accused of
involvement in a series of deadly attacks in Indonesia.

Setiadi said district police were carefully searching the
area for other accomplices.

"If they were captured here, automatically the others would
run away, so we are monitoring for any presence of their
friends or group members," Setiadi told ElShinta.

Spokesmen at the national police headquarters in Jakarta
could not be immediately reached for confirmation of the
arrests.

Noordin is said to have been a key member of the regional
militant group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), but is now believed to
have split off to form an even more hardline group. He has
repeatedly given police the slip.

JI was accused of a series of bombings including the 2002
Bali attacks, which killed 202 people.

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Terrorism more local than global: Australian experts

By Jonathan Lyons, Asia Security Correspondent

SYDNEY, November 1 (Reuters) - Security experts in Australia
are increasingly sceptical of the U.S.-led "war on
terrorism," which they say inflates the global threat and
ignores the local roots of religious violence.

Seen from the confines of Washington, Islamic militancy may
appear one large, undifferentiated mass under the direction
of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network, they say.

But the view from Australia, closer to the hotspots of
Southeast and South Asia where 92 Australians have been
killed in two Bali bombings, offers a richer tapestry.

Regional links are strong, travel is easy, and Australian
universities are deeply engaged in area studies and academic
exchange, giving researchers a window on local developments.
Meanwhile, a drive by the Australian Federal Police to put
officers in the region has provided an independent conduit
for information, free from political pressures that might
weigh on diplomats to back the Australian government's pro-
U.S. line.

"Many of us have come around to the view that Australia has
to get its hands dirty with the local details," said one
counter-terrorism official.

"This is the key to defeating terrorist violence, not a
wholesale declaration of global war," said the official, who
is not authorised to speak to the press and cannot be
identified.

David Wright-Neville, co-director of Monash University's
Global Terrorism Research Project, says too much is made of
the informal cooperation that undoubtedly exists among
militants around the world.

"There are informal networks for training ... but I think it
is an error to say that this is part of a cohesive, global
effort," he said by telephone from Melbourne.

For Wright-Neville and other analysts, bin Laden provides a
powerful idiom that can channel acute social and political
discontent of various forms into direct, violent action.

That is a long way from saying those behind the Madrid train
blasts, the Bali bombings, or the London undergound attacks
share a common goal or idea.

"Too often we've reduced the terrorism phenomenon to the
global, almost utopian vision associated with Osama bin
Laden," Wright-Neville said.

SECURITY LANDSCAPE

A recent gathering of experts saw little support for the
White House view of a worldwide campaign to establish a
unified "Islamic caliphate".

Nor did they endorse U.S. fears, advanced recently by
intelligence chief John Negroponte, that Sunni and Shi'ite
Muslims -- the two biggest sects and rivals for 1,400 years
-- may begin active collaboration against Western interests.

"No one takes seriously this unified 'caliphate' project,"
said one participant. "On the contrary, the more we look the
more we see that local factors are driving the violence,
even if al Qaeda is invoked as inspiration."

Among other recent findings of Australian security analysts:

-- Western militants may adopt the tactics and language of
al Qaeda, without necessarily adopting its vision of Islam
itself.

-- Leaders of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya appear to have
split with a pro-al Qaeda minority, led by accused Bali
bomber Noordin Top, to return to their long-term goal of
creating an Islamic 'superstate' across Southeast Asia.

-- Traditional religious schools, or madrasas, are not
"terrorism factories" but an integral part of limited
educational opportunities for many Muslim families.

-- The insurgency in southern Thailand reflects local
grievances among minority Muslims, dating back almost 100
years.

By searching for root causes of the "phenomenon of
terrorism", say experts, states can best tackle the problem
before activism explodes into violence.

Bin Laden has provided "an organising principle for a new
generation of dissident," said Wright-Neville.

"But we need to constantly keep the focus on the parochial
causes that are rendering them more susceptible to
techniques of recruitment" by dangerous militants, he said.

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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