Dinah Lord

Indonesia: President was the Islamists next target.

From The Straits Times:  It looks like the Indonesian police have foiled a dastardly attack on their President by Noordin Top's gang.  Intended to avenge for the executions of the Bali Bombers, two would be suicide bombers were shot and killed. Now, they're just standing on line in Jannah and waiting their turn at the virgins.

More good news:  Noordin Top's accomplices are being rounded up. 

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was the intended target of two would-be suicide bombers who were shot dead yesterday outside Jakarta, the national police chief said. 'Our President was a target,' General Bambang Hendarso Danuri told reporters, saying the information came from an accomplice of the two dead men.

During their raid on a rented house in Bekasi, police uncovered up to 500kg of explosives that can be turned into 100kg of bombs. Also found was a minibus rigged to be a mobile bomb.

The house was about 5km, or a 12-minute drive, away from the residence of the President in Cikeas, Bogor, on the outskirts of Jakarta.

Gen Danuri said the accomplice, who was not named, told police they were planning to detonate the explosives-packed vehicle at the President's house two weeks later, which would roughly coincide with the Aug 17 anniversary of Indonesian independence.  The two would-be bombers were shot dead as they tried to throw pipe-bombs to avoid arrest at the rented house, said Gen Danuri.

He identified the two as Ari Setiawan and Eko Gepeng and said they had helped terrorist leader Noordin Top in the 2004 Australian embassy car-bombing that killed 10 people and wounded scores more.

Al Jazeera, always the proverbial turd in the punch bowl, is claiming in this article that Noordin Top lives.

Watch the video and see what you think...

Indonesia: Looks like Noordin Top...

...won't be down for breakfast in the morning, either. 

Earlier this week it was Baitullah Mehsud, the mastermind behind Bhutto's assassination and chief al Qaeda butt boy in Pakistan biting the big one.  His death was rumored but has just been confirmed by Pakistan's Foreign Minister.

Now, it's good old Noordin from Jemaal Islamiya.  You remember him.  He's that fine, upstanding Muslim suspected in all of Indonesia's major terror attacks since 2002.  These include the attack on the JW Marriott in Jakarta in 2003, on the Australian embassy in Jakarta in 2004, and in Bali in 2005. 

 Indonesia says leading militant believed killed.

Indonesian police have shot dead a man suspected to be leading Islamic militant Noordin Mohammad Top during raids in Central Java and were trying to identify his body, a police source said on Saturday.

Those zany Indonesian cops?  They threw rocks at his house to capture him.

The police forces initially fired gunshots at the house at Beji village, Kedu sub-district, but no response from inside, and then, they threw rocks at the house from all corners, causing the house’s roof falling.

But still, no one came out from the house.

The police believed Noordin, with one or two of his men were inside the house, which belongs to Muzaeri.

Hundreds of locals flocked to the area and witnessed the police's operation from a distance, from a tobacco plantation nearby.

And then there's this:

"Top, a key recruiter, strategist and financier for militant Muslim group Jemaah Islamiah (JI) has been on the run for years, eluding capture on several occasions. Some mystical Javanese believe that Top must possess magic powers or charms that protect him. Police put it down to his reluctance to use easily-tracked mobile phones and his reliance on a close network of sympathizers who guard his whereabouts and act as his couriers when he needs to send messages to his cells."

Looks like his magic powers finally ran out.

Italy: Muslim leader calls for religious tolerance

and cites his home of Indonesia as the model.  (Warning:  You know you got trouble when the OIC lauds the Indonesian model as well.)

From AKI.

The leader of Indonesia's largest Islamic organisation, Hasyim Muzadi, has called for greater religious tolerance and understanding at an interfaith conference held in the Italian capital, Rome, on Wednesday. Muzadi, president of Nahdlatul Ulama, was at the conference organised by the Indonesian and Italian governments and a Catholic charity on Islam and coexistence.

The conference, entitled "Unity in Diversity: The culture of coexistence in Indonesia", was designed to improve dialogue with Indonesia, which is regarded by many as a model for a moderate Muslim country.

"Today's meeting lays a fundamental basis for balancing faith and tolerance," Muzadi told Adnkronos International (AKI).

Muzadi, whose organisation boasts more than 14 million members, joined intellectuals, religious and government officials, at the Rome conference. "Fundamentalism creates conflict between religions, while liberalism creates confusion. Because this it is important that each religion has its own faith," he told AKI.

Here's the rest of his quote on the NU english version website - the part that somehow didn't make the western press accounts.  Oddly enough.  (/sarc.)

According to Hasyim one of the forum's agenda was to formulate a harmonious relationship without disturbing each religion either in the aspect of theology or in the aspect of social.

"It is important because the inter-religious relationship in the world has often been trapped into fundamentalism vulnerable to conflicts or trapped into liberalism that tends to victimize each (religious) theology in the name of tolerance," Hasyim told NU Online shortly before heading to Italy.

Hasyim explained that liberalism had clearly harmed all faiths since the eighteenth century. "That is why this pendulum must be straightened with such acceptable and shared formulations, Hasyim said, adding that it would expectedly be guidance for interfaith groups all over the world.

In other words, butt out western world.   You will think and you will say what we want you to think and say about Islam, you dhimmi slaves.

When Hillary met Bambang

The appeasement is flowing and so is the jizya foreign aid and currency support.

From iafrica.com:

Clinton said after her arrival on Wednesday that it was "no accident" she had come to the massive archipelago of 234-million people on her first trip abroad since taking office.

She met President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono earlier on Thursday and told journalists afterwards that Washington wanted Jakarta's "advice and counsel about how to reach out not only to the Muslim world but to Asia and beyond".

I wonder, would that important personal relationship and world view extend to the Muslim religion and it's doctrine of Islamic Supremacy?

"Of course the personal relationship that President Obama has to Indonesia is very important to him," Clinton told reporters after meeting Yudhoyono, adding that his time here had helped to shape his world view.

We are so screwed.  My prediction:  Obama's 'smart power' will be the dumbest thing we've ever done.

A spokesperson for Yudhoyono said Clinton had "praised the democratisation process in Indonesia, which is a model for Islam," referring to 10 years of reform since the ouster of dictator Suharto in 1998.  Clinton met Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda on Wednesday and said Indonesia — as a democratic and mainly Muslim country — would play a key role in the Obama administration's new commitment to "smart power".

"Certainly Indonesia, being the largest Muslim nation in the world, the third-largest democracy, will play a leading role in the promotion of that shared future," Clinton told a joint press conference

But all this reaching out comes at a price - of course.  Question:  Would this officially qualify as the jizya?

A spokesperson said Wirajuda had asked the United States for a currency swap agreement and a standby loan facility to help it weather the global economic crisis, amid plunging demand for its commodities exports.

And they're still blaming Boosh.

She said Obama wanted to re-engage in the Middle East after the Bush administration had "not been as active in trying to bring the parties together".

Interested in some of the details of the currency swap deal that Hillary is going to personally convey to Obama?  Good luck, not many details are available.  The Financial Times has this:

Looks like Hillary can look forward to a big Islamo howdy in Indonesia.

I'm just so glad all of this engaging of the Muslim world is working out so well.

I don't think we'll be seeing a "Girls of Hizbut Tahrir" spread in Playboy anytime soon, do you?

From Reuters.

Muslim women hold placards during a protest outside the U.S. embassy in Jakarta February 16, 2009. A group of Muslim women protested against the upcoming visit by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The placard on the right reads, "Hillary is Israel's accomplice and zionist".

Indonesians have a hard hajj - 325 of them die.

(h/t Dr. Ronin and Bulldog who helpfully point out that Muslims believe the hajj is the ideal time to meet Allah.  The other ideal time for Muslims is when they strap on explosives and splodey-dope themselves.)

Some 325 Indonesian Haj pilgrims died in Saudi Arabia up to December 21, local media reported.

Of the 325 Haj pilgrim deaths, 225 occurred in Mecca, 36 in Madinah, and four in Jeddah, Indonesia’s Antara news agency said.

Around 150 Indonesian Haj pilgrims received medical treatment due to illness, the agency added.

The number is slightly lower than last year’s 327 Haj pilgrims who died in the same period, Deputy Chairperson of the Indonesian Haj Pilgrimage Committee Barita Sitompul was quoted by the news agency as saying.

According to Antara, Indonesia, which has the largest Muslim population in the world, sends a large number of Haj pilgrims to Mecca and Madinah, Islam’s two sacred cities, every year.

A total of 208,928 Indonesians performed the Haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia this year.

source - Bernama

Forget Tehran. Obama's gonna go see his Muslim homeys in Jakarta.

Sounds like it's been a part of his plan all along, doesn't it?

Donor: Obama suggested Jakarta visit

Barack Obama told a group of donors in California early last year that his first international trip would be to Muslim Indonesia, a supporter who was present recalled today.

Obama promised during the campaign to convene a Muslim summit, and the New York Times speculated today on where he would deliver a major, early address to a Muslim audience, settling on Egypt as the likeliest.

The Obama donor, Los Angeles real estate executive Ted Leary, recalled that Obama spoke of his plan to donors at a February 20, 2007 breakfast fundraiser at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, soon after announcing his run for president.

"Obama told the 20 or so of us at breakfast that 'his first trip as President would be to Indonesia - the world's most populous Muslim country,'" Leary recalled.

"He then said when he got off [Air Force One], he would say 'xxxxxxxx' - which we, of course, didn't understand," Leary emailed. "He said that it was Indonesian (which he speaks) for, 'I am back, dudes.'"

As Leary notes, there's a logic to an Indonesia trip: It's giant, Muslim, democratic -- and a place Obama lived as a child.

He said Obama told donors to “imagine if on January 20, 2009 a guy named Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in on the US Capitol steps as the President of the United States, what that would say to the world, especially the Muslim world, about our nation.”

Yes.  Just imagine.