Word: asyir
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Muslim fighting that has cost hundreds of lives in recent years, that intelligence officials believe was used by al-Qaeda for training recruits. Syawal, intelligence sources add, is also distinguished by his marriage to the daughter of Abdullah Sungkar, the Indonesian man who fled with radical cleric Abubakar Ba'asyir to Malaysia in 1985. Sungkar and Abubakar both es-caped jail sentences imposed by the Suharto regime and lived in exile in Malaysia for more than a decade. Sungkar died of natural causes in 1999, while Abubakar returned to Indonesia one year earlier, after Suharto's fall...
...alleged terrorist wannabes. But while there's no doubt that Kuala Lumpur is now committed to crushing militancy within its borders, it is Malaysia's dirty little secret that years of turning a blind eye to the activities of radical clerics like alleged Jemaah Islamiah head Abubakar Ba'asyir allowed Islamic radicalism to put down deep roots in the Malaysian Muslim community. There is no arguing, either, with the fact that Malaysia was used by the likes of Abubakar and his alleged henchman Hambali as their haven for over a decade and eventually as a rendezvous for both regional...
...hell-raiser who had turned devout in recent years. And, above all, Amrozi was a man with strong ties to Islamic radicals suspected of involvement in terrorist activities. His eldest brother co-founded the village's religious school, which then forged connections with an institution originated by Abubakar Ba'asyir, the Muslim cleric who has been described by U.S. and Southeast Asian governments as the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah?a network of Islamic militants in the region that has been designated a terrorist organization by the United Nations. Abubakar visited Tenggulun no less than four times, says village headman...
...some 70 million members. These were her most obvious allies in reining in Islamic radicalism, yet she has alienated them at precisely the wrong time. The chairman of one, Muhammadiyah, initially backed the President's tough post-Bali line. Now he's backpedaling, particularly on the arrest of Ba'asyir. "I reject Ba'asyir's strategy to achieve his ideas and goals," Syafii Maarif told TIME. "But his arrest was not based on enough legal evidence. The police should not arrest people at will without strong evidence...
...Part of the problem, of course, is that Muslim parties make up a small but critical part of her government. Indeed, her own Vice President, Hamzah Haz, is a longtime defender of radical Islamic groups. Late in October he told reporters that he planned to visit Ba'asyir in prison out of a feeling of "Muslim brotherhood." (Hamzah changed his mind at the last minute, sending a staff member in his place.) As for Ba'asyir, police held off from questioning him for two weeks while he was treated for respiratory problems. Still, resting in a police hospital in Jakarta...