August 2, 2000, The Washington Post, Rebels blamed in Indonesia bombing, by Rajiv Chandrasekaran,

August 2, 2000, The Washington Post, Rebels blamed in Indonesia bombing, by Rajiv Chandrasekaran,

JAKARTA - A powerful car bomb exploded outside the house of the Philippine ambassador to Indonesia yesterday, killing two people and wounding 22 others, including the ambassador.

Indonesia's president linked the attack to Muslim rebels fighting for an independent state in the southern Philippines, intensifying concerns about the rise of Islamic extremism in Southeast Asia.

The blast, which occurred around lunchtime as Ambassador Leonides Caday was entering his driveway in a chauffeur-driven black Mercedes sedan, partially destroyed the ambassador's residence and damaged numerous homes in the leafy, upscale Jakarta neighborhood where many diplomats and politicians live.

The bomb, according to witnesses and police, was placed in a van parked in front of Caday's residence.

The Philippine Embassy said last night that Caday, who was hospitalized after the blast, was "out of danger."

Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid said he believed there "is a connection" between the Jakarta blast and the insurgency in the southern Philippines, and called the incident "a foreign effort to discredit the Philippine government."

A spokesman for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front denied responsibility for the attack. The group has been accused by authorities of carrying out a series of recent bombings outside Mindanao, including two at shopping malls in Manila.

Across Southeast Asia, a region that has long had a tradition of religious moderation, a growing number of Muslim extremist groups have been ratcheting up often-violent campaigns for separate states and stricter adherence to Islamic laws.

In the Philippines, Muslim warriors fighting for an independent homeland on the island of Mindanao have killed more than 100 government soldiers and civilians since the conflict flared up in May.

Although troops captured much of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front base camp in July, the guerrillas have since declared a holy war on the government and have continued to engage in a variety of terrorist acts.

On another southern Philippine island, a separate Muslim rebel group still is holding 14 foreign hostages abducted from a Malaysian diving resort on Easter Sunday. The group's leader, Ghalib Andang, known colloquially as Commander Robot, has demanded a $1 million payment to release each of the remaining hostages.

In Indonesia, several thousand heavily armed, self-proclaimed Muslim holy warriors recently descended on the strife-torn Maluku islands from other parts of the country to join in a bloody conflict between Muslims and Christians that has claimed more than 4,000 lives in the past 18 months.

And in Malaysia, an Islamic cult raided two military armories in early July, stealing a huge weapons cache and killing two hostages.

Western intelligence sources believe Islamic separatists in Mindanao have been selling weapons to the Indonesian Muslim guerrillas.

During the 32-year reign of dictator Suharto, extremist groups in Indonesia were kept in check by his iron-fisted military rule. Now that Indonesia is a democracy, such groups have more freedom to organize and attract new members.

Diplomats say other foreign Islamic terrorist groups have been "making significant inroads in Indonesia," including ones with links to Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, who is suspected of masterminding the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed more than 220 people.