Achmad Sukarsono
Weak and Divided Islamic Jihadists Pose No Danger to Stability, ICG Says
Indonesia’s Islamic jihadi movement, which drove deadly attacks in the country with the world’s largest Muslim population since the 2002 Bali bombings, has been left weak and divided by political infighting, according to a new report released on Monday by an independent think tank on global conflict.
The jihadi community “will undoubtedly regroup and produce another hit squad, somewhere, somehow, that causes casualties and generates a new wave of arrests, but without posing any danger to Indonesian stability,” the International Crisis Group said in its report on terrorism in Southeast Asia’s largest economy.
Indonesia has increased its anti-terror operations since the July 17, 2009, bombings at Jakarta’s JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels that killed nine people, including the two suicide bombers.
They were the first terrorist attacks by Islamist militants in almost four years in secular Indonesia.
The bombings came nine days after elections in which President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono won a second five-year term, partly on his perceived ability to contain terrorism.
Within a month after the incident, police had uncovered the cell that masterminded the operation.
The group was led by Noordin Mohammad Top, a senior member of the Southeast Asian militant network Jemaah Islamiyah, suspected of involvement in anti-Western attacks in Indonesia since 2002 that killed almost 300 people, the US State Department said in a 2008 report. Indonesian police killed Noordin on Sept. 17, 2009.
Police this year also killed 13 people and arrested 61 in connection with a terrorist training camp in Aceh, Tito Karnavian, the head of the police’s elite anti-terror force, Densus 88, said last month.
While the recent crackdown was a “big blow” to the terrorist network, JI-linked groups “not only are surviving but also collaborating,” he said.
The ICG report highlighted the emergence of Jama’ah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT), a group established in 2008 by radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir that advocates Islamic law for Indonesia.
Police and prosecutors accused Bashir in 2003 of leading JI, a charge that was later dismissed in court.
JAT members were among the suspects arrested in a May 6 raid for raising funds for the Aceh camp, the ICG said.
While some JI members joined JAT, the new organization has “exposed some of the rifts within JI” partly because it built on Bashir’s celebrity status, the Brussels-based group said.
“As time went on and JAT grew rapidly, JI leaders were adamant: if you join JAT, you leave JI and vice versa,” the report said.
Police had a man wearing a sign saying Abu Bakar Bashir during a re-enactment of the May 6 raid, prompting speculation he may be the next target, according to the ICG.
The cleric denied any links to the raid and training camp, arguing that JAT rejects the use of violence and the arrested members were acting on their own.
Bashir has served two jail terms since 2003, neither of them for terrorism charges as prosecutors failed to prove his role in attacks.
“The rifts and shifting alignments so evident now in the jihadi community are a reaction to” the failure of “the jihadi project” in Indonesia, the ICG report said.
“There is no indication that violent extremism is gaining ground. Instead, as with JAT’s formation, we are seeing the same old faces finding new packages for old goods,” it said.
The bigger danger comes from the jihadi-influenced preaching through Islamic schools that facilitate recruitment and provide shelter to fugitives, the group said.
“Until the government finds an effective way of addressing them, the saga of terrorism in Indonesia will continue,” it said.
Islamic radicalism in Indonesia is a concern if not kept under control, Templeton Asset Management’s Mark Mobius said last month.
“If the government is unable to discourage radical forms of Islam, there may be risks to political and economic aspects of the country,” he said.
Bloomberg
wo 7 jul 2010 - 1:59