Indonesian militant leader says group will not die

JAKARTA, June 25 (Reuters) Islamic militants in Indonesiawill continue to wage war against the West despite recent arrests, captured militant leader Abu Dujana told CNN television.

Dujana, one of two top Jemaah Islamiah (JI) leaders arrested by Indonesian police this month, said the group will continue its fight for Islamic rule but he wanted it to choose targets more carefully to limit civilian casualties.

''When a part of it is cut off, [in this case] the head is cut off, there will be a replacement. It's only natural,'' Dujana told CNN in an interview at a secret location in police custody.

''We will continue fighting and we may use other methods,'' he said, adding that JI would ''continue to move on with its plans''.

Dujana is believed to head the military wing of Jemaah Islamiah, which has been linked to al Qaeda and blamed for a string of attacks that killed hundreds of civilians, including the bombings of the Australian embassy in 2004 and the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in 2003.

Police said he also had a role in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, many of them foreign tourists.

Dujana denied JI was involved in those blasts and said he became Jemaah Islamiah's military chief only after the attacks.

He said he hated the West because it had stolen Muslim lands.

''Many lands owned by Muslims have been taken away by our enemies. America is part of it, like in Palestine and other places,'' he said.

''We demand those governments return those lands and let us put Sharia law in place.'' Dujana said he did not get the idea that it was allowed to kill infidels from the Koran, but from Muslim clerics including Osama bin Laden ''Because of America's arrogance, many in the Muslim world know, believe, it's permissible to kill American soldiers. It's halal; it's permitted.'' But he said killing civilians was not the goal of his group.

''I would like to see Jemaah Islamiah choose their targets more carefully to limit civilian casualties, especially those who don't necessarily attack Islam.'' Dujana said in a video shown at a police news conference after his arrest that he had undergone military training in the Pakistani city of Peshawar and in Afghanistan.

Indonesia is the world's most populous country, 85 per cent of whom follow Islam, giving the Asian archipelago the largest Muslim population of any nation in the world.

While the vast majority of Indonesia's Muslims are relatively moderate, an increasingly vocal militant minority has added to political pressure for more laws in line with hardline Muslim teachings.

Jemaah Islamiah is an armed movement backing the creation of an Islamic superstate linking Muslim Indonesia and Malaysia, and Muslim areas in the Philippines and Thailand.

REUTERS SKB RN2009