Author: Russey Chroy
Publication: The Straits Times
Date: June 2, 2003
URL: http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/asia/story/0,4386,191862,00.html?
Three JI suspects are linked to
the school
Cambodian police shut down an Islamic
school near the capital yesterday as part of a crackdown on outside Muslim
influences prior to a visit next month by US Secretary of State Colin Powell.
The closure of the Saudi Arabia-funded
Umm Al-Qura Institute and the planned expulsion of 28 overseas Islamic
teachers came after an Egyptian and two Thais from the school were charged
with having links with Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiah (JI).
Making good on direct orders from
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to shut down the school, 40km east of
Phnom Penh, police moved in to kick out some 500 students from Cambodia's
ethnic Cham Muslim community.
Police, some armed with AK-47 assault
rifles, made a half-hearted show of searching the students' bags, which
contained everything from clothes to copies of the Quran to English- language
textbooks.
The school's 28 remaining teachers,
from Yemen, Thailand, Sudan and Egypt, according to Cambodia's Interior
Ministry, have been given until tomorrow to leave the country.
Mr Hun Sen said the crackdown had
been ordered on the basis of intelligence operations with the United States,
which has long been concerned about Cambodia's growing number of Islamic
schools, mostly funded from the Middle East.
Mr Powell is due in Phnom Penh for
a regional security summit on June 18.
'We have been investigating with
the US since the terrorist attacks in New York,' Mr Hun Sen said in a speech
broadcast on national radio.
'From the investigation with the
US, we have found out there is a network of terrorists hiding in Cambodia.'
Police yesterday also shut down
Umm Al-Qura's two branches in Kandal and Kampong Chh- nang provinces. --
Reuters, AP
