Attacks and aftermath leave Muslims with mixed emotions

From half a world away they watched, mesmerised like everyone by televised images of the soaring twin towers of the World Trade Centre disintegrating into pillars of smoke, dust and ash.

Nearly a year later, a group of doe-eyed, headscarved teenage girls - students at a strict Islamic boarding school on the steamy outskirts of the Indonesian capital - recalled their emotions at the sight, blurting them out in the hectic, headlong manner of adolescents everywhere.