Abu Bakar Ba'asyir must be feeling like he is not getting enough press coverage and in order to reinvigorate his 15 minutes of fame he has trotted out one of his favourite headline grabbers of years past, the bombings of 12 October 2002 was the work of the CIA.Now, the Ba'asyir theory goes that a US warship off the coast of Bali fired a missile. He refers to this missile as a micro-bomb and not a regular bomb. The idea being that poor little Amrozi, Samudra, and Mukhlas are being framed by the US, Australia, and the Jews (presumably Israel).
As far as Ba'asyir can see, these would be the only countries that are capable of pulling off a conspiracy of this magnitude. He does though seem to suggest that Amrozi had a role in the first of the two explosions, but that the explosion was minor and at best shattered some glass and maybe wounded a few people but did not kill anyone.
It would seem that the cleric's contention is that Amrozi was a stooge and that the prosecutors in the case known this but are not brave enough to adduce the evidence in court and prove it.
Ba'asyir is allegedly the spiritual head of the Jemaah Islamiyya or JI. It is an allegation because he maintains that he has never been involved and that anyone claiming that they know him to be involved are kidding themselves. His did do some jail time for being part of an evil conspiracy. The court while sentencing him stated that he had given his approval for the bombings but had not been involved in any other way.
However, he is about to split from the Indonesian Mujaheddin Council and form a new organization concerned with the implementation of "pure" Islamic Law called the Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid. The plan is to launch this new organization on 25 October 2008.
If the speculation turns out to be true as it relates to the execution dates of Amrozi, Samudra, and Mukhlas, then maybe he will be launching this new group on the day of the bombers executions.
Then again, maybe not! Current speculation also has people saying that despite the chatter to the contrary the government is concerned about the impact the executions might have on their chance of re-election.
