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Indonesia on alert after bombers’ execution

Indonesian security forces were on high alert yesterday after the execution of three Islamists over the 2002 Bali bombings amid fears of a violent extremist backlash, police said.

“We’re still on alert for any security disturbances after the executions,” national police spokesman Abubakar Nataprawira said, saying the readiness level was at its highest.

Indonesia stepped up security at tourist spots and embassies ahead of the execution of the bombers behind the 2002 attacks on the resort island of Bali, which killed 202 people, mostly foreigners.

Amrozi, his brother Mukhlas and Imam Samudra were executed by firing squad shortly after midnight on Sunday on a prison island off southern Java.

Their funerals in their home villages turned into rallies for hundreds of Islamic extremists bent on jihad or “holy war” with the West, even though the vast majority of Indonesian Muslims are moderates.

Noor Huda Ismail, an expert on the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) regional terror network, which was allegedly behind the Bali carnage, said he had seen more than 20 JI militants from Malaysia and Indonesia at the funeral.

“That occasion unified these people to share contacts and for making strategies,” he said after attending the chaotic funerals for Amrozi and Mukhlas in Tenggulun, east Java.

Several senior JI militants remain at large in Indonesia.

They are believed to include Malaysian-born former accountant Noordin Mohammad Top, an alleged terrorist recruiter and the self-proclaimed leader of a group called al-Qaeda for the Malay Archipelago.

Police meanwhile said they had arrested two men on the weekend for making bomb threats in protest at the executions. The Australian and US embassies received bomb threats last week, along with shopping centers and hotels around Jakarta.

Australia, which lost 88 nationals in the Bali attacks and had its embassy here car-bombed in 2004, has warned against unnecessary travel to Indonesia. The US has told citizens in the country to keep a “low profile.”

Until the end, the bombers expressed no remorse for their “infidel” victims and claimed they wanted to die as “martyrs” for their dream of an Islamic caliphate spanning much of Southeast Asia.

Sentenced in 2003, they launched at least four failed legal challenges, which delayed their executions and kept them in the media spotlight.

Hundreds of supporters briefly clashed with police as the bodies of Mukhlas and Amrozi — the latter dubbed the “smiling assassin” for his courtroom antics — were delivered to their family in Tenggulun.

The vast majority of Indonesian Muslims had little sympathy for the militants and were embarrassed by the extremists’ behavior.

The head of the country’s top Islamic body, the Indonesian Council of Ulamas, said on Sunday the bombers could not be considered “martyrs.”

“Someone who killed others will not die as a martyr unless they waged a war in the name of religion. They were not fighting for religion,” Umar Shihab said.
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