Indonesian police have arrested a radical Islamist preacher accused of providing support for extremists linked with the Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, officials said Monday.

Abu Bakar Bashir is accused of involvement in an Islamic militant training camp uncovered by police in Aceh province in February, said counter-terrorism chief at the security ministry Ansyaad Mbai.

"He had been involved in terror network in Aceh. As we know, that terror group in Aceh is linked with Jemaah Islamiyah and many other extremist groups in our country," Mbai told AFP, confirming the arrest.

"One of the allegations is that he provided funding to the Aceh military training. It's one of many allegations weighed against him," he added.

The arrest was made early Monday in the district of Ciamis, West Java, a police source said. Police are expected to give a press conference later today.

Bashir appeared calm as he arrived at the Jakarta police headquarters.

"This is God's grace to reduce sin. This is engineered by America," he told reporters before being led away by armed anti-terror police.

Bashir denies links with Aceh group

Bashir was conducting a Koran reading session when he was arrested, his lawyer Achmad Cholid said.

"We're still finding out what the police charges are before stating our position on this matter - if they're related to terror activities, what exactly they are," Cholid told AFP.

Bashir, 71, is known for his hardline rhetoric and has been accused of providing spiritual leadership to Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a claim he denies.

He served almost 26 months for conspiracy over the 2002 terror attacks on Bali nightspots that killed more than 200 people, before being cleared and released in 2006.

The NGO International Crisis Group said last month that Bashir had returned to the police radar in May, when officers raided the headquarters of his Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT) group in Jakarta and arrested three of his followers.

The trio were charged over the training camp in Aceh, International Crisis Group said. Bashir insisted he had no links with the Aceh group.

Indonesian police have conducted a series of anti-terror raids nationwide since discovering the training facility in Aceh, in northern Sumatra island, in February.

Aceh group more extreme

Police said the militants at the camp had plotted to attack an independence day celebration on August 17, an event to be attended by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The planned attack was inspired by one carried out by the Islamist militants who killed 166 people in Mumbai, India, in November 2008.

On March 9 police killed the alleged leader of the Aceh group, Dulmatin, who was considered one of the masterminds of the 2002 carnage in Bali.

Dulmatin had been a JI leader but analysts believe the Aceh group was a new, more extreme outfit which combined militants from various Islamist organisations around Southeast Asia.

JI, an Al Qaeda-inspired group whose mission is to create a Muslim caliphate across Southeast Asia, is blamed for multiple terror attacks across Indonesia, including the Bali attacks.

Bashir was jailed by the Suharto regime from 1978 to 1982 for inciting people to reject the secular national ideology in favour of an Islamic state.

He founded JAT in 2008 as a legitimate - although radical - body with which to continue agitating for Islamic law and militant jihad.

- AFP