The October 12 bombing in Bali that killed more than 180 people
seemed to vindicate the claims of those who had been accusing
the Indonesian authorities of deliberately ignoring the presence on
Indonesian soil of Islamic terrorists, connected with the al-Qa’ida
network. Self-styled terrorism experts at once claimed to
recognize the signature of al-Qa’ida’s alleged regional
mastermind Hambali, who was believed to have planned a similar
bombing of the US Embassy in Singapore. More sober voices
commented that domestic power struggles rather than
international terrorism might be responsible for this outrage. It
was the largest, but by no means the first major bomb explosion
in Indonesia; the country had seen many of those since the fall of
Suharto in May 1998, and in many cases military personnel —
‘rogue’ elements, ‘deserters’, retired or indeed active officers —
appeared to be involved. There are also, however, a number of
relatively small but conspicuously violent radical Islamic
movements, that engage in jihad in such places as the Moluccas
and Central Sulawesi or act as vigilante squads raiding nightclubs,
discotheques and other dens of inequity. Surprisingly perhaps,
several of these militias maintain close relations with factions in
the military or political elite
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