Captured top Jemaah Islamiyah fugitive Basri tells how he personally cut off the head of one of three female students killed in 2005. He said he and his comrades were distressed by the loss of dear relatives in Poso’s sectarian violence. Instructors and preachers sent by al-Qaeda gave them jihad training, making them believe that Allah wanted these deaths. They are now remorseful.

Jakarta (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Basri and four men detained with him described themselves under interrogation as uncouth, seeking vengeance for their relatives killed in sectarian violence in Poso, indoctrinated by leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah, the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist network.

Until a few weeks ago, 30-year-old Basri was on Indonesia’s ‘Most Wanted’ list. He now stands charged, among other crimes, with the beheading of three young Christian women in Poso (Central Sulawesi) in 2005. During the 1998-2001 sectarian violence between Christians and Muslims he lost many relatives.

Police report he confessed to using two machetes to behead one of the three victims, who were attacked as they made their way home.

Basri, who in an interview with the Associated Press said he “was sorry from the bottom of my heart”, insisted that he was compelled to act the way he did. “I had no choice. I was like a mad buffalo on the loose.”

He and his comrades said that for years Jemaah Islamiyah instructors, trained in Afghanistan and southern Philippines, taught them how to make bombs and use weapons.

“Islamic preachers,” Basri said, “said that killing was a form of prayer. They told us that in war Christians had cut off the heads of Muslim women and it was time for pay back.”

The terrorists, who have been in prison since early February, said they swore allegiance to Jemaah Islamiyah leaders in 2003 before joining them in weekly indoctrination sessions that focused on the need for jihad against the infidels.

Aat, one of the men arrested with Basri, described a bomb attack against a Christian market that left 20 people dead. “I cried a lot the next day,” he said.

According to the terrorists themselves, al-Qaeda brought men from the Jemaah Islamiyah to Poso in 2001 in order to ignite a religious conflict.

Nasir Abbas, a former terrorist leader who now collaborates with the police, said that the men who are working for the Jemaah Islamiyah are “gangsters picked up by the preachers. They neither pray nor fast but are convinced that what they do is lawful and justified by Allah.”

Jemaah Islamiah, which operates across South-East Asia, is responsible for the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people.

• indonesia
• jemaah
• islamiah
• basri
• interrogation
• remorse
• christian
• women
• beheading
• al-qaeda