Worldwide, Islamic Fundamentalists Join the Fray

[Snowden]

Worldwide, Islamic Fundamentalists Join the Fray
17:10 Aug 08, '06 / 14 Av 5766
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

Energized by the ongoing war between Israel and Hizbullah-controlled Lebanon, some Islamic fundamentalist groups claim to dispatch terrorists to Lebanon and to target Jews worldwide.
An Indonesian Muslim group announced Tuesday that it had sent 20 of its members to Lebanon in order to join the Jihad against the Jewish state. The claim, made by the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), was reported by the Associated Press, which warned that it had not been verified.

FPI spokesman Soleh Mahmoud said the 20 men left Indonesia five days ago and are now undergoing training in Lebanon under the supervision of Hizbullah. "They are ready to die to defend Muslims," Mahmoud said.

On Friday, before the FPI announced that it had already sent Muslim fighters to Lebanon, Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Desra Percaya said, "The government understands what they are feeling... anger, disappointment and frustration with Israeli troops acting inhumanly and brutally." He said that while the government could not stop people from joining the war in Lebanon, the seriousness of threats to do so is questionable: "If you want to do something, you want to travel, you do not need to declare it publicly, just say, 'In the name of God' and then go."

Last week, the Australian government announced that it was investigating a claim by another Indonesia-based Islamist group, the Asian Muslim Youth Movement (AMYM), that it had dispatched hundreds of Southeast Asian terrorist bombers to strike Jewish or infrastructure targets in countries such as Israel, the United States, Britain and Australia. A leader of the AMYM, Suaib Bidu, told The Australian newspaper that 217 suicide bombers - financed by wealthy Australian-Indonesian businessmen - had already been dispatched to their target countries, with thousands more prepared to set out. According to the report, more than 3,000 terrorists were to have been inducted on Saturday in the Indonesian city of Pontianak on Kalimantan island.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood (known as Ikhwaan in Arabic) has also claimed to have 10,000 volunteers ready to travel to Lebanon to fight the Israelis. Speaking to a conference organized by the Egyptian Scientists Association on August 2, Brotherhood leader Mohammad Mahdi Akef called on his co-religionists to "help the resistance in all its forms" in Lebanon and in the Palestinian Authority.

Similarly, Yemen's President Ali Abdallah Saleh told an Al-Jazeera interviewer on August 1, 2006: "I hope that all the countries bordering Israel, not just Syria, would enter the war. I mean the countries bordering with Israel. We will not enter the war officially, but we will open the borders to the fighters. We will allow the transfer of money and equipment to support the Lebanese resistance and the Palestinian resistance in Gaza. ...This war has become a duty incumbent upon us. Every Muslim has the individual duty to fight on this front." (English transcript provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute [MEMRI].)

Also speaking from Yemen, on an official visit to the country, Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) praised Hizbullah terrorists shortly after a lethal Katyusha rocket attack on northern Israel that killed 11 people. Abbas told reporters that the Hizbullah war has reawakened the Arab world's honor and is an example for others to follow.

As reported in late July, Al-Qaeda's number two, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, announced in a videotaped message that Al-Qaeda will make the nations supporting Israel "pay the price." His statement indicated unity of purpose among all sects of Muslim fundamentalists, reiterated by Shi'ite leaders in Iran and elsewhere, when it comes to jihad against Israel. However, a former teacher of Osama Bin-Laden, Saudi sheikh Safar Al-Hawali, called the Hizbullah ("party of Allah" in Arabic) the "party of Satan" and issued a fatwa (religious ruling) forbidding any support or prayers for the group, due to its Shi'a religious orientation, which Sunni Salafi groups such as those ruling Saudi Arabia generally consider to be apostasy.


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