Militants split over attacking soft targets that kill Muslims

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Southeast Asian radicals are divided over the wisdom of attacking hotels, nightclubs and other "soft targets" where Muslims may be killed alongside Westerners -- an internal split that could weaken the terrorist enterprise, authorities told The Associated Press.

Some militants inside the al-Qaida-linked Southeast Asian terror network Jemaah Islamiyah want their jihad to focus on fighting Christians in certain regions of Indonesia rather than bombing Western targets where Muslims die, too, according to government officials, defense attorneys and an intelligence adviser to Indonesia.

The debate among Indonesian militants appears to have intensified after the Aug. 5 bombing of the J.W. Marriott in Jakarta -- the 12 fatalities were mostly Muslim. A prominent group of Muslim defense lawyers told AP they would not accept any Marriott bombers as clients.

After the Marriott bombing, several senior militants close to Zulkarnaen, Jemaah Isla-miyah's purported operations chief, expressed displeasure because most the victims were Muslim, said the senior intelligence adviser who asked that his name not be used.

He said the information was based on internal Jemaah Islamiyah communications picked up by intelligence agents.

Rift between radicals

The revelations about the rift coincide with a post-Sept. 11, 2001, hobbling of al-Qaida's and Jemaah Islamiyah's command-and-control structure that many officials believe has led to more indiscriminate targeting -- not just in Indonesia, but worldwide -- moving away from al-Qaida's tradition of limiting attacks to Western and Jewish targets.

Dissension inside militant ranks could potentially weaken terrorist networks anywhere in the world, officials said, though it may also mean greater danger as cells attack without the blessings of their peers.

In fact, officials in Indonesia, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they're bracing for more attacks, which they say are increasingly likely, especially during the Christmas and New Year's holidays.

Indonesia's national security minister, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, warned in a speech Sunday in Bali that terrorists appear to be "regrouping, reconnecting, recruiting and retraining."

Jemaah Islamiyah -- whose professed goal is to impose an Islamic superstate spanning much of Southeast Asia -- is loosely organized with an estimated 3,000 members in the region, including 2,000 in Indonesia.

Several senior Jemaah Islamiyah operatives were not privy to either the Marriott bombing or the Oct. 12, 2002 twin nightclub attacks on Bali island that killed 202 people, officials told AP, underscoring the diffuse nature of the terror group and its ability to act without consensus.

Most of the Bali blasts' victims were vacationing foreigners, with only a few Muslims, mostly waiters and other workers, among the dead. That's because Bali, unlike the rest of Indonesia, is primarily Hindu and because the Sari Club, the worst-hit of the two nightclubs, had a controversial policy of only admitting foreigners.

All this helps explain why the Marriott attack led to far more soul searching among militants than the Bali blasts.

Ismail, a key suspect in the Marriott bombing, on Tuesday said he regretted carrying out the attack because of the high number of Indonesian victims. His remarks came during a police reenactment of the blast.

Increased Muslim deaths are a byproduct of successful blows against al-Qaida's command structure, communications and finances as terrorists resort to local targets, said a U.S. counterterrorism official, speaking on condition of anonymity from Washington. He predicted that these killings may create a backlash in the Islamic world.

The Muslim Lawyers Group, which has defended most of the Bali bombers, said it will not take on any of the dozen or so men accused in the Marriott blast.

"We saw who the victims were ... almost 90 percent Muslim," said attorney Mahendradatta, the group's leader, who uses only one name. "We don't want to defend people who are doing their struggle like a loose cannon. They have no vision, no mission."

Introspection among militants in Indonesia -- where the majority's notably tolerant practice of Islam stands in sharp contrast to a radical fringe -- isn't necessarily the norm in the Islamic world.

Suicide bombers in the Middle East, for instance, have attacked Israeli Arab restaurants in Haifa and killed Israeli Arabs on buses in the Galilee -- with scant public apology or remorse.

Almost all of the world's terrorist attacks attributed to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida or groups linked to al-Qaida since Sept. 11 have taken place in Muslim countries -- including Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia and Yemen.

The more than 60 deaths in a string of recent bombings in Istanbul, Turkey -- as well as the 17 people killed in a Nov. 8 suicide bombing at a housing compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia -- were overwhelmingly Muslim.

For many militants in Indonesia and elsewhere, killing Muslims is an acceptable price to pay for the goal of ridding infidels from their midst.

Mahendradatta said that some of his clients justified the deaths of Muslims in the Bali blasts by comparing Bali to a water source that had been dirtied by rhinoceroses. When the rhinoceroses are killed, "other animals have to die" to clean the water, he cited the militants as saying.

"It's a pity they (the militants) understand this in a radical way," Mahendradatta was quick to add.

Even before the Marriott and Bali bombings, some militants questioned the desirability of making Indonesia a staging ground for jihad.

Mahendradatta said two of his detained clients, alleged senior Jemaah Islamiyah operatives Abu Rusdan and Mustofa, believe the war should be limited to places where Muslims have been attacked by Christians -- such as Indonesia's Sulawesi and Maluku regions.

Others, Mahendradatta said, think all of Indonesia -- including hotels or nightclubs in Bali and Jakarta -- is fair game "because Indonesia is not yet an Islamic state."

The internal friction is mostly about which parts of Indonesia and the world are the most appropriate arenas for jihad, said Sidney Jones, a Jakarta-based terrorism expert with the International Crisis Group.

"It not as simple as people within JI (Jemaah Islamiyah) feeling squeamish about Muslim victims," she said.