Word: jihadeers
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...real fighters, the thousand or more troops from the Laskar Jihad, are nowhere in sight, leaving refugees like Rawana Tangalu homeless and bewildered. The 60-year-old farmer fled into the jungle with her daughter and son-in-law and their three-year-old boy and two-month-old girl when the attack came at 10 a.m. on Nov. 28. "I could hear the bombs and nonstop shooting from the village for two days and two nights," Tangalu says. "My daughter had to cover my grandchild's mouth to stop her from crying." The local military commander sent dozens...
...military is unable to prevent Laskar Jihad troops from continuing their attacks, it will constitute a chilling victory for the Islamic extremists. "They've managed to evict the military from Poso: not even Fretilin could do that in East Timor," says Tamrin Tomagola, a Muslim sociologist at the University of Indonesia. "If the situation is not brought under control, Poso could become the peak of all communal conflicts in Indonesia. The whole of Sulawesi could be engulfed and the conflict could then spread as far as the southern Philippines. This is a key fear...
...That isn't the only reason Washington is worried about Laskar Jihad and its commandos. Once, a few dozen deaths in inter-religious violence on Sulawesi might have rated little more than a few minutes on CNN. But in the post-Sept. 11 world, battlefield victories by Laskar Jihad will have a profound impact on external debt negotiations, international investment and other issues critical to Indonesia's stability. Although there is little evidence that militant Islamic groups in Indonesia have links with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda, the growing strength of Laskar has already set alarm bells ringing...
...opponents and many independent analysts say is the greatest challenge to controlling the militants: their support at the highest levels of Indonesia's government. From direct infusions of cash to fund the fighters to phone calls to local military commanders to prevent crackdowns, sympathizers have ensured that the Laskar Jihad can operate with impunity. The current total of its fighters on Sulawesi?as high as 7,000 by some estimates?far outnumbers the 2,000 or so police and army troops stationed in the region...
...Like almost everyone else, Pelima is too scared to blame the Laskar Jihad directly. But he is unequivocal in dating the most recent round of troubles to the arrival of the outsiders. "In the past four months many Christian villages have been cleaned out and many killed. Now you can see people walking around carrying guns openly in those villages," he says despairingly. "How can that be? We are farmers here and know nothing about automatic weapons. Where did these men get the guns from and the training to use them...