More on this story. "Official: Terrorists killed Christian teacher, planned to kill American," from the Associated Press, July 28:
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian terror suspects executed a Christian teacher in front of his family and were planning to assassinate an American language teacher before their arrest this month, a top anti-terrorism official and the suspects' lawyer said Monday.
The ten alleged militants have also told officers they were plotting to attack the Supreme Court to avenge the upcoming executions of the Bali nightclub bombers and attack a joint Singaporean-Indonesian military exercise, the security official said.
The revelations point to the resilience of Islamist militant networks in Indonesia despite a U.S.-backed crackdown that has netted more than 400 suspects in recent years and reduced the risk of more large-scale attacks on Western targets, most experts say.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, Indonesia has been hit by a string of suicide bombings blamed on members and associates of the regional militant group Jemaah Islamiyah, including the 2002 nightclub bombings on Bali island that left 202 people dead, many of them foreign tourists. The last major strike was in 2005, also on Bali.
The group of 10 militants were arrested in early July in a series of raids on Sumatra island. Officers have said one of the suspects was a Singaporean who trained in Afghanistan with al-Qaeda. Twenty bombs packed with live bullets were seized from the men.
The men's lawyer Asludin Hatjani said Monday the group was responsible for shooting 59-year-old Dago Simamora, an Indonesian teacher, to death in front of his children last year in the south Sumatran town of Pekanbaru. The crime had previously been unsolved.
"It's true, they did that," the lawyer told The Associated Press. He gave no motive for the attack.
Late Sunday, the anti-terrorism officer revealed the men were also planning to execute an American teaching English in the town of Sekayu, which lies just west of Pekanbaru. He identified the teacher by his first name of Samuel.
A teacher at the SMU-2 school in Sekayu confirmed a U.S. citizen called Samuel used to work there, but left several months ago. She did not give her name. The U.S. Embassy in the capital, Jakarta, declined comment.
The anti-terrorism officer spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, saying that revealing his identity would jeopardize ongoing anti-terror operations.
Hatjani declined to comment on that allegation, saying interrogations were continuing.
The officer also said the group planned to detonate one of the devices in the car park of the Supreme Court in the capital, Jakarta, to coincide with the executions of three militants convicted in the Bali attacks.
Authorities say they expect to execute the trio before the beginning of September.
He also said the group was planning to attack a joint Indonesia-Singaporean military exercise at Baturaja, the Indonesian military's major combat training area. It is located in south Sumatra.
The official declined to say how advanced the planning was in the operations.
Officers have previously said the group also planned to attack a cafe in the Sumatran tourist town of Bukittinggi, but aborted it at the last minute out of fears there would be too many Muslim casualties.
How horrible again here more killings of infidels from India to the West to the East. It is all because of Islam the religion of terror and Murder. It is now a normal way of life in the world. Soon Islam will be a the norm through out the world. Expect more killings and Sharia through out the world.
Why would Americans now wish to teach there, or to visit as tourists? And what happens as the links that allow some Indonesians to maintain contact with the civilized world of non-Muslims are broken? And what if not only those who come for a year or two, but all tourists, cease to visit Muslim countries?
And what will happen to Muslims, who need Infidels while Infidels do not need them, and indeed would only profit if Muslim possessors of oil price themselves even faster out of the market, and force much greater changes, soon, in the world's ways so that their only claim to our attention, and their only certain source of revenue, oil, diminishes in significance, much more rapidly than they would have expected, or certainly have wished.
And when the government of The Netherlands bans Iranians from studying nuclear engineering, because after all that is where A. Q. Khan stole the secrets he then took back to Pakistan, and Iranians howl with protests, should the reaction not be, all over the Infidel world, to ban Muslim students from studying not only nuclear engineering, and chemistry, and biology -- with their obvious connection (see "Dr. Germs") to weapons of mass destruction, but all kinds of technological training, including engineering of the most obvious kind, and training in computer technology of all kinds, and of course, anything at all, including the training of pilots, that makes Muslim states and peoples more rather than less of a threat.
Why train them at all, in any of this, anywhere in the Infidel world? Why? On what theory? Looking forward to what conceivable -- given the texts and tenets of Islam -- outcome that might be good for Infidels?
Cut all of that access to Western scientific education out. Infidels everywhere should do as the Dutch, but do it far more systematically and thoroughly.
If they wish, on the other hand, to study political science, and the development of ideas of freedom, or comparative religion, or even, just possibly, literature and art -- well, then, perhaps something can be arranged for a handful of the most morally and intellectually advanced.
Perhaps.
It seems hardly a day goes by that Muslims somewhere aren't killing someone. This is a deeply sick religion, which has no peer for committing all kinds of atrocities in the name of the faith. What a burden to mankind Islam is. Exceptionally tedious too. I have come to think that the only way a Muslim can fully redeem his or her humanity is to leave Islam. There's no good Islam, just an Islam that goes passive from time to time. Big difference.
Year of living dangerously....
Wonder how their tourism is doing?
Officers have previously said the group also planned to attack a cafe in the Sumatran tourist town of Bukittinggi, but aborted it at the last minute out of fears there would be too many Muslim casualties.
But why? Wouldn't all those Muslims have been thrilled to die in jihad? Wouldn't they have gone straight to heaven?
Before 9/11 who would have guessed that Indonesia would have such extremists.
The reason was simple, it doesn't take much for a 'moderate' Muslim to turn into an extremist Muslim.
"fears there would be to many Muslim casualties"
That could never be true.
This is the first I have heard of some form of causality ratio requirement for violent action. Someone in their group must be a big thinker to have figured out anything less than 7-1 is not so good. Otherwise, the Math is not in their favor.
Wellington writes, 'the only way a Muslim can fully redeem his or her humanity is to leave Islam'.
Pithy, that. Brings to my mind's surface what's always lurking in there - how can any Muslim, who spends any amount of time thinking about Islam, not apostasize? I'm not unsympathetic to the difficulty in shedding a deeply ingrained cultural identity, but at the end of the day, intellectual honesty demands it.
Such mental work really makes giants of those who've thought their way out of Islam; more so even than those who've suffered indignities at it's hands, and are simply running from that.