Abu Bakar Bashir doesn't mind being called a terrorist

Abu Bakar Bashir doesn't mind being called a terrorist

Bashir said such allegations were nothing compared to the struggles Muslims have had to endure over history.

The 68-year-old cleric, known for his fiery anti-Western views, has been accused by the United States and Australia of being a key leader of the al-Qaida-linked militant group Jemaah Islamiyah, a charge he denies.

The network is accused of church bombings across the world's most populous Muslim nation in 2000, the 2002 attack on the resort island of Bali, attacks in the capital of Jakarta in 2003 and 2004, and a triple suicide bombing on Bali last October, the AP reports.

The attacks together killed more than 260 people, many of them foreigners, and thrust Indonesia onto the front line of the global war on terror.