Plausible Deniability

Megawati Sukarnoputri is in a bind. She promised George W. Bush her country's full support in the war on terrorism; on her visit to Washington on Sept. 19, she said, "Indonesia is always against violence. Terrorism is an act of violence so we will definitely fight terrorism." But back home, the fear of a backlash from Indonesian Islamic groups has her government whipsawing in its treatment of terror suspects. Megawati's dilemma may explain why, despite the testimony of its own intelligence, the government couldn't even bring itself to admit the existence of an al-Qaeda terrorist camp in Sulawesi, and still allows one of its leaders, a man connected with Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, to remain at large. On the one occasion recently when law-enforcement authorities did hand over a suspected al-Qaeda operative to the U.S., local sensitivities obliged them to disguise it—clumsily—as an extradition to another Muslim country. Jakarta claimed the man was wanted in Egypt for terrorism.

That's still the official line about the Jan. 11 deportation of Pakistani Havis Muhhamad Saad Iqbal; but Egyptian diplomats have never heard of him. "We have no knowledge of this matter," says Minister Plenipotentiary Reda El-Taify. "We are not aware that Egyptian intelligence was ever in Indonesia or that the Pakistani was wanted in Egypt." So where did Havis go? One clue: the 25-year-old was wanted by the U.S. for a possible connection to the shoe bomber, Richard Reid. Intelligence sources in Jakarta say Havis was bundled onto a CIA Gulfstream G-5 executive jet for an unknown destination. As is its usual practice, the CIA refused to comment about the case, though a senior intelligence official in Washington did say Havis is in custody in a "foreign country." Another Washington official describes this kind of mission as a routine part of the CIA's work: "The agency has done that for many years. There are people who are wanted in one country or another, and (the CIA will) help get them to the place where they are wanted on some charge."

The links between U.S. and Indonesian security forces go back some way. Even before the Sept. 11 attacks, intelligence sources say, Indonesia had quietly handed over other terror suspects directly into the hands of U.S. agents. American and Indonesian intelligence operatives conducted at least one joint operation to track down suspected al-Qaeda members. The missions were kept highly secret, not only to head off any possible public outrage but because the government itself was deeply split on the extent and nature of such actions.

Indeed, Indonesia's war on terror has not been vigorously fought on every front. Take, for example, the mysterious case of Parlindungan Siregar. According to an Indonesian intelligence report obtained by TIME, he was a senior instructor at an al-Qaeda training camp 10 km outside Poso, on the island of Sulawesi. The document gives a detailed breakdown of the location and staffing of the camp: Arabic was the working language; new arrivals were issued pistols and Kalashnikov automatic rifles and then asked to show their commitment to jihad by joining in the island's bloody Muslim-Christian clashes. Indonesia's most senior civilian intelligence officer, former army general Hendropriyono, at first acknowledged, then denied the existence of the so-called Camp Mujahidin.

Parlindungan is wanted for questioning by authorities in Madrid, who allege he was the right-hand man of Imad Eddin Barakat Yarbas, the leader of an al-Qaeda cell in Spain. But Parlindungan, who had returned to Indonesia in December 2000 from Spain, mysteriously disappeared last November, after Spanish police arrested Imad and seven other suspected terrorists. "The Indonesians had him in their hands," says a Western intelligence source in Jakarta, "he was under 24-hr. surveillance and then when the request came in for his arrest, he suddenly couldn't be found." This time, though, it's a sure bet that Parlindungan didn't make his disappearance courtesy of a CIA jet.