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Irfan Awwas Irfan Awwas Mujaheddin Council of Indonesia Southeast Asia 20030810  
  Irfan Awwas Indonesian Mujahiddin Council Southeast Asia 20020121  
  Irfan Awwas Indonesian Mujahedin Council Southeast Asia Indonesian At Large Big Shot 20050608  
    chairman of the Indonesian Mujahedin Council

Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Muslim Hard-Liners Cheer Iran Vote Outcome
2005-06-25
Governments of Muslim countries offered muted congratulations in response to Iran's presidential election, while the United States and Britain said the vote failed to give Iranians a true choice for their future. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the conservative mayor of Tehran, beat his relatively moderate rival Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani and was declared Iran's next president early Saturday. His triumph extends the conservatives' control in Iran and could lead to a return to social restrictions that were commonplace after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

In Indonesia, the leader of a hard-line Islamic group praised the outcome. "I'm glad and happy to know Iran's result," said Irfan Awwas, a leader of Majelis Mujahiddin Indonesia, a hard-line Islamic group. Its founder, Abu Bakar Bashir, is in jail for his role in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people. He said Iranians apparently think Rafsanjani is "more fit to manage international relations, especially with Western countries, but not to lead the country."

Pakistani Muslim scholar Komaruddin Hidayat attributed the hard-liner's victory to anger over U.S. foreign policy. "America has put Islam in a corner," Hidayat said. "America attacked Iraq based on false reasoning just as it did in Afghanistan. This has given conservatives the chance to gain power in some Islamic countries."

Russian President Vladimir Putin offered congratulations to Ahmadinejad, and offered to continue nuclear cooperation after Russia completes construction of a reactor in Iran's southern port city of Bushehr.
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Southeast Asia
Blast at home of Indon 'militant'
2005-06-08
A SMALL bomb exploded today at a house rented by an Indonesian Muslim preacher who was once detained for two years without trial in Malaysia for alleged involvement in terrorism, a fellow activist said. No one was injured in the blast on the outskirts of Jakarta, Irfan Awwas, chairman of the hardline group Indonesian Mujahedin Council, said. The preacher, Muhammad Iqbal, also known as Abu Jibril, was being questioned by police, Mr Awwas told AFP. "We condemn this heinous terror attack. We suspect that police are trying to twist facts by putting the blame on the victims," he said. Mr Awwas said police searched the house after the explosion, which occurred in the grounds near the garage. An AFP photographer at the scene said the blast caused no damage to the house.

Iqbal was held for two years in Malaysia under the country's harsh Internal Security Act, which allows detention without trial, for alleged involvement with the Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia, a militant group seeking to set up an Islamic state. He was deported to Indonesia last year and was subsequently jailed for six months for immigration offences. The United States has accused Iqbal of being a primary recruiter and second in command of South-East Asia's extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah, which is linked to al-Qaeda.
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Southeast Asia
Go Figure? Hotel blast suspect a Bashir pupil
2003-08-10
INDONESIAN authorities have made a link between a dead suspect in the Jakarta bomb blast and the cleric accused of leading the Jemaah Islamiah terror organisation, Abu Bakar Bashir, who warned the Government yesterday not to "discredit Muslims wanting to perform their religious duties".
Like blowing up infidels — don’t talk bad about them — it’s their duty
Asmar Latin Sani, 28, who police believe was in the car that blew up outside the Marriott hotel last Tuesday and had helped plan the attack, had attended a hardline Islamic school headed by Bashir.
Just another reason to walk this piece of crap into a public square and kill him...slowly...I’m thinking: feed him to pigs a la Hannibal Lector
Without citing its sources, Indonesia’s Antara news agency said yesterday that Latin Sani, whose severed head was found on the fifth floor of the shattered hotel, was a graduate of the Ngruki Muslim boarding school in Solo, Central Java, co-founded by Bashir.
nice... that’ll be a gold medal in the high jump
The school is the centre of the "Ngruki network", boasting alumni such as Mukhlas, now on trial in Bali for co-ordinating the bombings last October that killed 202 people; the recently escaped explosives expert Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi; and Asia’s most wanted terrorist, Hambali, who has been called Bashir’s right-hand man. The link was made as Foreign Minister Alexander Downer confirmed yesterday that Australian Federal Police had been told by Indonesian police before the Jakarta bombing of an email intercepted in June that warned of a possible terrorist attack in the area of the capital where the Marriott was located. "The Indonesians picked up that there was possibly going to be an attack in Jakarta but they didn’t pick up the exact time and the exact location," he said.
And didn’t much care
Prime Minister John Howard, meanwhile, has warned that the Australian embassy in Jakarta is a potential terrorist target.
And has been, from day one...
In a message sent from his jail cell yesterday, Bashir urged Muslims to adhere to their faith without fear of being labelled "terrorists". Prosecutors tomorrow will almost certainly demand a heavy jail sentence for the elderly cleric, who faces a maximum penalty of life behind bars for plotting insurrection and for a string of church bombings across Indonesia on Christmas Eve 2000 that killed 19 people.
Death not an option? Get serious
Bashir sent word to 3000 believers gathered in a stadium in Solo for a congress of the Mujaheddin Council of Indonesia, or MMI, thought to be the public face of JI. "Muslims are now being cornered by various parties as trying to topple the Government and as terrorists," Bashir said in an address read by MMI executive chairman Irfan Awwas.
truth hurts - especially for islamics
"I say: do not be afraid of being labelled as trying to overthrow (the Government) or as terrorists when you are carrying out Islamic sharia (law) in full," Bashir said. "The Indonesian Government must not discredit Muslims wanting to perform their religious duties and should not arrest clerics, religious leaders or religious teachers because that will anger God."
Talk to him lately Bashir? Soon....
All are, of course, above any man-made law, answering only to God, whose will is interpreted by clerics, religious leaders and religious teachers...
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Terror Networks
Indonesian religious loons threaten violence if they can't have their way
2002-01-21
  • Irfan Awwas, director of the Indonesian Mujahidin Council, said President Megawati Sukarnoputri would be "playing with fire" if she ordered police to follow Singapore and Malaysia in cracking down on Muslim radicals across the country. "If security forces take action against the Muslim community, then I believe what will result will be major turmoil in Indonesia," Awwas said.
    Lemme see here. If the government doesn't let them engage in violence and subversion, they're gonna become violent and subversive, right? That makes sense. Not a lot of sense, but sense.
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