| Submit your comments on this article |
| Southeast Asia |
| 'Prince of Jihad' arrested in Indonesia |
| 2009-08-26 |
| THE owner of a radical Islamist website who calls himself the Prince of Jihad in his blog postings has been arrested in connection with the Jakarta hotel bombings. Counter-terror squad officers arrested Muhamad Jibril Abdurahman, alias Muhamad Ricky Ardan bin Mohammad Iqbal, near Jakarta late yesterday and also raided the office of his website, Arrahmah.com, a police spokesman said. Police believe the Pakistan-educated suspect helped channel funds from abroad to finance the July 17 twin suicide bombings on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels that killed nine people, including six foreigners. The source of the funds is not known, but police have said they are investigating whether the money came from al-Qaeda brokers in the Middle East, among other possible donors. Muhamad Jibril is well-known in Indonesian radical circles as a publicist of extremist material, and is the son of a firebrand Islamist cleric who has been linked in the past to the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) regional terror network. In addition to the website, he edited a publication called Jihadmagz which espoused jihad or "holy war" against the West. "He chose his jihad path through working in the media. He felt there were many Muslims who were being suppressed everywhere and there was a war of thoughts," Indonesian extremism analyst Noor Huda Ismail said. Police said Muhamad Jibril was an accomplice of Saudi national Al Khalil Ali, who was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of smuggling money from abroad to pay for the attacks. Muhamad Jibril, believed to be aged in his mid-20s, is the son of Indonesian cleric Abu Jibril who was arrested in Malaysia in 2001 on suspicion of being a senior JI member. The father was deported to Indonesia where he served about five months in jail for using a forged passport. He now runs a website, Abujibriel.com, which also supports radical Islamist groups and spouts jihadist ideology. "Jihad and terrorism are not something to be afraid of or avoided, because to cause terror to Allah's enemies is the instruction of Islam," said an article by the Prince of Jihad which appeared on both websites after the July 17 attacks. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #2 Start out by making him the Princess of Jihad, and then get rough. |
| Posted by: gorb 2009-08-26 14:27 |
| #1 Pakistan-educated and Saudi funding is a common theme here/in any sunni terrorism |
| Posted by: Glavitle B. Hayes4065 2009-08-26 13:12 |