BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — From the safety of a forest camp, a commander of a new Indonesian militant group looks into a camera and ridicules the notorious extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah: They are not violent enough, come and join us, he shouts, an automatic rifle in one hand.
The emergence of the previously unknown group calling itself al-Qaeda in Aceh shows how Southeast Asian militants are adapting even amid a Western-funded crackdown that began following the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings and has taken out scores of top leaders.
The group’s criticism of Jemaah Islamiyah is further evidence of the split in Indonesian extremist networks between militants supporting al-Qaeda-style attacks inside the country and those who believe such attacks hurt the longer-term aim of establishing a Muslim state in Southeast Asia.
The speech is contained on a 75-minute training, recruitment and propaganda video obtained by The Associated Press from a person not affiliated with the militant group. It contains scenes of about 15 militants exercising on monkey bars, shooting automatic weapons and preaching in a makeshift camp in the western province of Aceh that was raided last month by anti-terror police.
Part or all of the video briefly appeared on a militant-linked blog on the Internet, released by the militants soon after the camp was raided, the first documented case of a terrorist training camp in Indonesia for five years.
