Word: jihadism
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...Laskar jihad was founded in 2000 by an unassuming Islamic teacher named Ja'far Umar Thalib. A 40-year-old from the east Java heartland of Indonesian Islam, Ja'far's mild demeanor disguises a fierce devotion to what he sees as the plight of Muslims in Indonesia. Like many of Southeast Asia's radical Muslims, he spent several years in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the mid-1980s, both studying and fighting against the Soviet invasion. (Ja'far says he met Osama bin Laden then, but was unimpressed: "He couldn't even read the Koran without stumbling...
...waited for the government to respond and finally we gave up hope they would defend the Muslim community and decided to act ourselves," Ja'far says. His call for an armed defense force elicited a speedy response, both in personnel and cash. Within months the newly formed Laskar Jihad had sent some 3,000 volunteers to Ambon, the capital of Maluku province, a force the group still maintains there. An estimated 9,000 people have died in the fighting in the Maluku Islands, 79 of them Laskar fighters, Ja'far adds...
...study in contrasts, Mohammad Ichsan, deputy commander of Laskar Jihad's forces in Sulawesi, exudes a high-energy rage that reverberates in his hoarse voice, as he leans forward on the edge of a chair in the group's headquarters, a small house at the end of a narrow alley in Poso. Ichsan also denies that his forces are on the offensive. The town, a once thriving fishing port famous for its carving of ebony wood harvested from nearby forests, is now shuttered and virtually deserted but for Laskar fighters. Even police and army troops stay close to their base...
...What happens next in Sulawesi depends in part on the young policeman stationed in Poso who calls himself Rudi. Despite being heavily armed?he carries a holstered pistol as well as an automatic rifle and a bayonet?Rudi is reluctant to stop at a Laskar Jihad checkpoint on the road outside Poso. "Do we have a letter of authorization?" he asks, keeping his finger on the trigger guard of his rifle. Although they muster only an antiquated shotgun and a homemade rifle among them, he hangs back from the villagers manning the makeshift wooden hut from which the black flag...
...backing one side or the other. "Whenever we try and do something, it seems like someone from the top stops it," he says. But Rudi, a Javanese Muslim, has no doubt about what would be an indispensable, giant step toward peace: "It would be much safer without the Laskar Jihad. The locals all want peace, but the people from outside keep the fighting going...