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"We have acquired intelligence that our relief groups in Indonesia and some other areas are becoming a possible target of terror attacks," South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Lee Kyu-hyung said. In response to the intelligence, South Korea sent out requests to countries where their relief workers are asking them to take security measures for South Koreans, according to the Associated Press.

An un-named ministry official said the government received no specific threat but "the warning was issued as a precaution because of the Christian-leaning of some relief organizations."

Radical Islamic groups have begun relief operations in Indonesia, on the island of Aceh. "The Laskar Mujahidin group, which campaigns for an Islamic state in Indonesia and is fiercely anti-American, established a camp close to hundreds of other local and international volunteers at the military airport in Banda Aceh, beneath a sign in English that reads 'Islamic Law Enforcement,'" writes the AP reporter Chris Brummitt.

"We are here to help our Muslim brothers," said Jundi, a member of Laskar Mujahidin. "As long as [foreign troops] are here to help, we will have no problem with them. There is no need for any friction."

Indonesia is home to the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah, which is blamed for bombings across Southeast Asia. Jemaah Islamiyah expert Sidney Jones said Laskar Mujahidin was "raising concerns that the presence of U.S. and Australian troops in Aceh to help the humanitarian aid effort masks a hidden agenda" of Christian missions.

"We are very close friends with the military and they have been assisting our efforts to help the Acehnese people by bringing us on their airplanes. I expect we will be here for a very long time," said Hilmy Bakar Almascaty, vice-chairman of the Jakarta-based Islamic Defenders Front, which is coordinating with other radical Islamic groups, according to Toronto's Globe and Mail.

However, the people on the Indonesian island of Aceh, where more than 100,000 people have died, tend to dislike the radical forms of Islam spread from other Muslim nations. "The traditionalist Muslims of Aceh, with their mystical, Sufistic approach to life and faith, are a world away from the fundamentalist Islamists of Saudi Arabia and some other Arab states," says Greg Barton, a professor of politics and author of Indonesia's Struggle: Jemaah Islamiyah and the Soul of Islam.

Writing in The Australian, Barton says, "Perhaps it is for this reason that aid for Aceh has been so slow coming from wealthy Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia." A debate within those Arab nations has been raging over the amount of money they should give. The situation in Aceh shows that the Muslim world is not united under the banner of radical Islam. "There is, thank God, no clash of civilisations in Aceh, but rather a profound expression of our common humanity that speaks of the potential for some enduring good to come out of this appalling tragedy." Maybe the work of Christian relief groups can go a long way toward providing that "enduring good."

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Church aid:

• Area churches help tsunami victims | Less than two weeks after a devastating earthquake and tsunami ravaged parts of Asia, local churches are reaching out to help. (Forest Lake Times, Minn.)
• Religious groups play vital role in charitable offerings | Every year, Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie sends $150,000 to humanitarian causes overseas. Since the tsunamis, it has decided that's not enough. The church is embarking on a monthlong campaign to raise another $100,000 from its members to help survivors of the natural disaster in southeast Asia. (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

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January (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49