Word: tenggulun
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Mohammad Zakaria is an angry man. The headmaster of al-Islam pesantren in Tenggulun, on the island of Java?gaunt, bearded and with deep-set black eyes blazing?is warning visitors to his Islamic boarding school that it is fortunate they come in peace. If not, he says, non-Muslims "would be lucky to get out alive." Asked about terrorist attacks by Muslims, Zakaria grows more agitated, raising his voice. "The unbelievers accuse us Muslims of being terrorists because they don't have the guts just to say they are waging war against Islam." Of those convicted for their parts...
...Zakaria's words seem harshly out of place in this sleepy village of narrow lanes and rattan-and-straw shacks. But despite its peaceful air, Tenggulun could reasonably be described as ground zero for militant Islam in Indonesia. Al-Islam school was founded in the early 1990s by two brothers of the three convicted bombers. Yet the bitter radicalism of Zakaria, together with the drawings of automatic rifles and slogans calling for jihad and martyrdom in students' essays pasted to one of the school's walls, is at odds with the beliefs and practices of the roughly 200 million Muslims...
...Maksun, a genial man in his late 40s who has served as Tenggulun's village chief for the past eight years exemplifies that syncretic, tolerant tradition. Apart from the usual country smells of manure and woodsmoke wafting through the windows of his house, Maksun's office is also faintly redolent of incense. For Maksun is a traditional faith healer. He has no problem reconciling his magic with Islam. "I am a good Muslim, but I am also a paranormal," he says, shrugging...
Amrozi revered Ali Ghufron, who was two years older and the most devout member of the family. In the 1970s Ali Ghufron, with his brothers Ali Imron and Amin Jabir, left Tenggulun to study at Ngruki, 250 miles to the east, in a school established by Abubakar Ba'asyir, a Muslim cleric widely believed to be the spiritual leader of JI. Ba'asyir is currently detained on suspicion of being involved in the series of bombings in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta in Christmas 2000. In the mid-1980s Ali Ghufron went to study in Malaysia, and a few years...
Mukhlas, forewarned, had fled back to Tenggulun. In late 2001, according to police and intelligence officials, he and Hambali traveled to Afghanistan. It is not clear if Mukhlas was at the meeting in Thailand at which Hambali announced his soft-targets strategy. But regional intelligence officials say they are certain that Hambali soon handed over day-to-day control over JI's terrorist operations to Mukhlas. "Hambali was too well known," a Malaysian official says. "He could still give orders, but he had to get out of the region...