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The school where it all started & Bomber-principal's widow stays on

Date : 11 September 2011

The school where it all started

Remote village school in Johor was the nerve centre of Jemaah Islamiah terror network in S.E. Asia

By Zakir Hussain In Ulu Tiram (Johor)

At the dirt track entrance to this remote village, a green crest is still bright against the white walls of the Luqmanul Hakiem Islamic School.

It shows an open book and bears the slogan 'Beriman, Berilmu, Beramal' - be faithful, knowledgeable, and charitable.

A decade ago, this was the sight that greeted villagers, visitors and students who studied here.

Now, all is silent.

The students have long gone and the compound is in a state of disrepair.

This quiet corner in rural Malaysia was the nerve centre of the terrorist network Jemaah Islamiah (JI) in South-east Asia and a training facility for the group's next-generation leadership.

Its teachers were militants and bomb-makers. Its best students were recruited to the JI's cause - which was to establish an Islamic state in the region through the use of violence.

The terrorist attacks of Sept 11 in the United States, as well as the discovery of terror plots being hatched in Singapore and the region, turned the spotlight on the school.

Acting on information from regional counterparts, the Malaysian authorities swooped in and shut it down, detaining teachers and scattering students.

Now dust and debris are all that remain.

A visit to the deserted premises offers an inkling of what daily life was like before the raid.

On one wall, the names of 20 female students are written in black marker, above holes left by nails where they once hung their prayer gowns.

On another wall is a faded roster for cleaning duties.

A half dozen Compaq desktops and an overhead projector are stacked in a corner of what appears to have been the staff room.

Elsewhere, a pile of fraying Qurans sits on a desk. There is a discarded copy of Singapore Malay lifestyle magazine Manja, dated January 2005, with a picture of Singapore Idol Taufik Batisah on the cover.

The only part of the school still in use is its small mosque, where the 30 families living in the village still pray.

Luqmanul Hakiem was founded in 1991 by two radical Indonesian clerics fleeing a crackdown back home.

Abdullah Sungkar and Abu Bakar Bashir had broken away from Darul Islam, a banned group that wanted to establish an Islamic state by force, and felt Malaysia - where it was easy to slip in and out of and where the authorities were not on their heels - was a safe place for them to regroup.

Kampung Sungai Redan, tucked away amid oil palm and banana plantations, proved to be an ideal commune.

The school provided a convenient cover as well as a base to propagate their teachings and renew their ranks.

It soon enrolled 400 students ranging from five to 17-year-olds, many of whom were from Indonesia or Singapore, and whose parents sent them there for a religious education.

Villagers said the school offered a regular curriculum like any number of religious schools all across Malaysia, including instruction in subjects such as English and Mathematics.

But the discipline, they said, was harsh.

Teachers would beat pupils behind their ears, and some were made to spend the night at the nearby cemetery to learn to overcome fear.

A housewife, who asked to remain unnamed, said she and her husband sent their three children there in the late 1990s. But they pulled them out after a couple of years as they did not like the beatings.

The teachers, one villager observed, were outsiders who did not mix with other villagers.

It was precisely this secrecy that enabled the JI leaders to remain undetected for well over a decade before their game was up.

The school staff was a Who's Who of South-east Asian terrorism.

They were bound by a shared history of fighting against what they believed was the oppression of Muslims around the globe.

The first principal, Mukhlas, fought in Afghanistan in the late 1980s and met Osama bin Laden there.

He later became JI's regional commander in 2002 and took charge of the Bali bombing, for which he was sentenced to death and executed in 2008.

Also living close by the school were his brothers Amrozi and Ali Imron, and JI explosives expert Dulmatin, who taught there.

His wife, Paridah Abas, still lives in a house adjoining the main school building. (See other story)

Noordin Top, JI's chief strategist, was said to have taught computer classes and Malay at the school.

He masterminded the 2003 Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta, the 2004 Australian embassy bombing, and the second Bali blast in 2005. He was shot dead by Indonesian police's anti-terrorism squad in a fire-fight in Solo, central Java, in 2009.

His wife and mother-in-law still live in a house behind the school.

Other JI leaders closely associated with the school included Azahari Husin, who was a board member, JI operations chief Hambali, who was a frequent visitor, as well as bombers Imam Samudra, Wan Min Wan Mat and Zulkarnaen.

Luqmanul Hakiem soon doubled as a meeting place for the group's operatives.

They included Singapore JI leaders Mas Selamat Kastari and Ibrahim Maidin, both of whom are now in detention in Singapore.

Mas Selamat first fled there after he escaped the 2001 dragnet in Singapore.

The school's brightest students were reportedly handpicked to be weaned on JI ideology.

Many were sent abroad to Pakistan and Afghanistan for military training alongside Al-Qaeda and other radical groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba, as well as to camps in the southern Philippines.

Among them were then-teenage Singaporeans Muhammad Arif Naharudin and Muhammad Amin Mohamed Yunos, who were at the school in the 1990s and talent-spotted to be the next generation of JI leaders.

Both went on to study in Karachi, and afterwards to Afghanistan for military training.

They were arrested in 2003 and detained in Singapore.

By then, the school was no more. Towards the end of 2001, a squad of more than 20 heavily armed Malaysian policemen raided the school compound.

More raids followed a month later, during which several teachers were detained and the school shut down.

Said the housewife whose children attended the school: 'A few months before the police swooped in, something felt different about the place - as if our comings and goings were being watched.

'There were strange noises at night, and it went on for several months.'

After the raid, the village headman said: 'A lot of people were very suspicious of them, but no one really knew what was going on there until it was all over.'

Ten years on, there are still questions about what went on within the white walls of the school, and how its leaders escaped detection for so long.

Those who remain are keeping mum.

Noordin Top's mother-in-law, for one, is eager to forget.

Approached for a comment, her face reddened as she berated this reporter for dredging up the past.

'He's dead and buried,' she said. 'What more do you want?'

zakirh@sph.com.sg

(With thanks to SPH - StraitsTimes.com)

Note : No reproduction or downloading of this Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) article is allowed in any medium. Permission has to be obtained from SPH.

 

9/11: TEN YEARS ON

Bomber-principal's widow stays on

Ulu Tiram - The school her husband headed was discovered to be the hub of a regional terror network, but Madam Paridah Abas, 41, maintains she does not know what Jemaah Islamiah (JI) is about.

'I don't know if it exists,' she tells The Sunday Times outside her single-storey house, which adjoins the main building of the former school.

She gets by on her job as a full-time kindergarten teacher, and wears the niqab - a full-face veil that exposes only the eyes - as she has done since she was 19.

It has been 10 years since the authorities first shut down the school and sent Madam Paridah and Mukhlas - JI's operations chief - along with several others running.

Many of the wives have since returned or stayed on: Ulu Tiram is their only home, and they have companions they can commiserate with.

The authorities continue to keep in regular contact with the families there.

Madam Paridah was born in Singapore in 1970 and moved to Johor Baru with her parents and family at the age of seven. Her brother and JI leader Nasir Abas later introduced her to Mukhlas, whom she married when she was 20.

After fleeing Ulu Tiram in 2001, they moved to Indonesia, where Mukhlas, his brother Amrozi and fellow operative Imam Samudra planned several blasts in Bali in 2002 that killed 200 people. The trio were executed in 2008.

When Mukhlas was detained, Madam Paridah was pregnant with their sixth child - their son Usamah, who is now eight - and had to return to Ulu Tiram with their three girls and two boys.

She then wrote a book about her struggles in the years after her husband was first detained. Titled Orang Bilang, Ayah Teroris (They Say Dad's A Terrorist) and published in 2005, it has become a bestseller in Indonesia.

Her older brother Hashim was also detained in Singapore in 2001 for plotting attacks in the Republic, and was released only early last year.

Today, Madam Paridah continues to look after her ailing mother in the village. Her father died two years ago.

Her six children are now aged between eight and 20. The two oldest are in college in Kuala Lumpur, while the other four are studying in Ulu Tiram. One of her daughters helps the neighbours' children with their homework.

Occasionally, Bukit Aman (the Federal Police Headquarters) comes calling. 'They ask after us, they want to show they care and make sure the children are okay and all,' she says.

Asked if she has any regrets about her husband's involvement with JI, Madam Paridah says she never thinks of what would have happened otherwise.

'I was so in love with him. Even if I could turn back time, I would still choose him,' she says. 'He was very kind, a genius, he was a good father.'

She firmly believes that what has happened over the past 10 years is predestined.

Right now, she wants to make sure her children get a good education. 'That's what every parent wants for their children, isn't it?'

And she adds: 'I also want them to be good Muslims.'

Zakir Hussain

(With thanks to SPH - StraitsTimes.com)

Note : No reproduction or downloading of this Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) article is allowed in any medium. Permission has to be obtained from SPH.