Indonesia militants surrender arms

Thousands of Muslims have called for a jihad

By Richard Galpin in Jakarta

A group of some 3,000 Muslim militants in Indonesia has agreed to surrender weapons and abandon their training camp near the capital, Jakarta, by Sunday.

The announcement was made after hours of negotiations with the police, who threatened to used force to close the camp and collect the weapons.

However, one of the group's leaders, Hilal Thalib, said Laskar Jihad would remain active.

The militants were preparing to take a jihad or holy crusade to the Moluccan Islands where there has been fighting with Christians.

Threats

A spokesman for the group told the BBC the volunteers would return to their home towns.

Hundreds of police officers have been deployed in the area, along with armoured vehicles, in case the volunteers refused to leave peacefully.

But leaders of Laskar Jihad had made it clear beforehand that the training programme would be completed by Sunday anyway and that they would send the first batch of freshly trained recruits to fight in the Moluccan Islands by the end of this month, after regrouping in another city in Java.

The group threatened to send a total of 10,000 men to the Moluccan Islands.

Over the past 18 months, there have been vicious clashes between Muslims and Christians living on the islands, leaving more than 2,000 people dead.

Laskar Jihad says the government has failed to tackle the violence and therefore the only solution is for a jihad, or holy war.

The question now is whether the authorities will be able to stop them if they do try to travel to the region.