Terrorists planned attack in Indonesia

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Five suspected members of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network arrived in Indonesia from Yemen last July with a plan to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, a high-ranking U.S. official has revealed.

But Indonesian authorities balked at taking action, allowing the men to slip out of the country after they realized they had been discovered, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. U.S. diplomats surmised that authorities had intentionally scared the team away so as not to have to confront them.

The incident, which was not made public earlier, highlighted the ambivalent attitude of Indonesia's government and military toward foreign and domestic Islamic radicals who reportedly assisted the al-Qaida team.

It also illustrated the difficulties the United States may face if it extends its war against al-Qaida and related terrorist groups to Southeast Asia, where close cooperation with friendly governments and security forces would be essential for success.

A U.S. official in Washington on Wednesday confirmed that an al-Qaida plot to detonate a truck bomb at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta around July or August of 2001 was disrupted. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.

Indonesia's top security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono declined to comment on the allegations Wednesday, but said law enforcement agencies were monitoring potential terrorists. Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said he had not received reports of the alleged plot.

Extremists linked with bin Laden are reported to have established cells in Malaysia and Singapore. And a contingent of U.S. troops is in the Philippines to stage exercises with government units battling Abu Sayyaf guerrillas in the jungles of Basilan island, just off Indonesia's northern coast. But cooperating with Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, may present special problems for U.S. policy-makers.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has said the Bush administration wanted to resume military assistance to Jakarta but was restricted by a congressional ban imposed after the Indonesian army devastated East Timor in 1999.

Since Sept. 11, President Megawati Sukarnoputri has tread a fine line between pleasing Washington -- one of its major foreign donors -- and reflecting the disquiet many of its Muslim citizens feel about the war in Afghanistan.

The matter has been further complicated by Megawati's hands-off policy toward the military. This has allowed the generals to retain links with domestic radicals, in particular the Laskar Jihad militia which is blamed for thousands of deaths in a war with Christians in Maluku province.

Laskar Jihad is not a grassroots movement. Western intelligence sources say hardline generals covertly set up the group in 2000 as a tool to destabilize reformist President Abdurrahman Wahid and thwart efforts to assert civilian control over the military after decades of dictatorship.

Before the embassy plot was revealed, an Indonesian general told The Associated Press that Laskar Jihad was financed with money embezzled from the army's main warfighting element.