http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/NE04Ae01.html
The evolution of Indonesian terror
By Jacob Zen
The ongoing trial of Umar Patek, the alleged mastermind of the 2002 Bali
bombing in Indonesia, symbolizes the demise of one of the last-standing
fighters from the 2000s generation of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) militants. Yet
three incidents in March 2012 show that the threat of terrorism in Indonesia
persists, albeit in a new and different form.
With a shortage of funding and fewer ties to al-Qaeda central than JI had in
the 1990s and 2000s, terrorists in Indonesia now operate in smaller cells and
carry out smaller-scale attacks. They are also more likely to become
radicalized domestically, as opposed to the jihadi battlegrounds of the earlier
generation of Islamic militants who were radicalized while abroad.
This distinction was apparent in recent incidents. On March 18, five terror
suspects were captured making preparations for an attack on the La Vida Loca
bar on the resort island of Bali. The second incident occurred on March 21 when
a package bomb in Paris was delivered to the Indonesian Embassy, allegedly
linked to a French national who had been on Indonesia's "most wanted" list
since 2010. The third took place on March 30 when Indonesian police raided an
alleged terrorist safe house on the outskirts of Jakarta, killing two suspects.
One of the most important differences between now and the 1990s and 2000s is
that the links between terrorists in Indonesia and their traditional foreign
funders, including al-Qaeda, are drying up. Despite Patek's denials during his
interrogation, intelligence officials from the Philippines and Indonesia
believe that Patek was captured in Abbottabad, Pakistan, as the hunt for Osama
bin Laden neared its climax.
Patek allegedly intended to request funds to reinvigorate the faltering jihadi
operations of Abu Sayyaf and JI in Southeast Asia. The risks he took to reach
the former al-Qaeda chief, some analysts contend, show both groups' desperation
for new funding. Significantly, the five terrorists arrested on March 18 in
Bali were planning to conduct a series of bank robberies to finance their
attacks on the tourist destination.
Similarly, on April 13, two terrorists who had carried out bank robberies in
Medan, Sumatra, in 2010 to fund attacks were arrested in Bima, West Nusa
Tenggara province. There is an increasing relationship not only between bank
robberies and terrorism, but also other forms of organized crime such as drug
trafficking.
More worrisome, perhaps, the new generation of terrorists in Indonesia are more
likely to be homegrown - educated in terrorism and radicalized within Indonesia
- than the previous generation of jihadis in JI.
Patek, currently on trial; Abu Bakar Bashir, JI's former spiritual head now
serving a 15-year prison sentence for financing terrorist camps in Aceh;
Azahari Husin, a terrorist killed in 2005 by counter-terrorism officials in
East Java; Dulmatin, killed in 2010 by Detachment 88 in Jakarta; and Hambali, a
9/11 architect now held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were all Afghanistan jihadi
veterans who brought their terror skills back to Indonesia.
In contrast, the main suspect in the recent attempted Indonesian Embassy
bombing in France was a Muslim Frenchman who spent three years in Malaysia and
Indonesia studying religion and became radicalized in Indonesia. He began
following the Salafi-jihadi movement, which gained traction in Indonesia in the
1990s during the inter-religious clashes between Christians and Muslims in the
Moluccas.
At that time, many Muslim fighters were sent by an offshoot of JI known as
Laskar Jihad from Java to fight Christians in the Moluccas. While Laskar
Jihad's original members in the 1990s were veterans of the Afghanistan jihad
against the Soviet Union occupation, many terrorists today were radicalized
during the jihad in the Moluccas and other domestic inter-religious conflicts
in the 1990s.
Despite Indonesia's efforts to promote non-violence in its religious
institutions, jihadis have infiltrated many Indonesian madrassas (seminaries).
According to the report of the "Third Public Hearing of the National Commission
on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States", 10% of the members of the Global
Salafi Jihad are from Indonesia. Unlike in the Arab World, "Only the Indonesian
group was almost exclusively educated in religious schools," the hearing noted.
As a case in point, in July 2011, the dean of the Umar bin Khatab boarding
school in Bima, West Nusa Tenggara province, was arrested when several of the
27 homemade pipe bombs that he used to instruct his students in jihad went off
accidentally, killing a school employee.
During a three-day standoff, his students, armed with machetes and swords,
prevented police from investigating the school. One of the dean's students had
previously been sentenced to 15 years in jail for killing a police officer with
a sword. The dean was ultimately captured and sentenced to 17 years in prison
in March 2012.
There are fears that jihadis in Indonesia may now also be hiding behind groups
like the Islamic Defenders Front and Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT). Both groups
advocate a violent form of Islam and the implementation of Sharia Law in
Indonesia. The JAT was founded by JI spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir and has
been called the "new camouflage of JI" by Ansyaad Mbai, the chief of
Indonesia's National Counter-Terrorism Agency.
He noted that the JAT "has the same leader, Abu Bakar Bashir, and most of the
key figures of JAT are also JI".
The third incident in March 2012 involved the capture of two suspected
terrorists who were allegedly planning to carry out bank robberies to support
their terrorist activities and had in their possession several jihad-related
books. The duo thus represents the two current terrorist trends in
Indonesia-criminal activities to fund terrorism and homegrown radicalization.
Detachment 88, Indonesia's premier anti-terrorism unit, has responded to the
changes in terror tactics by becoming more nimble itself. It has also
coordinated with the United States and Australia, whose citizens in Indonesia
are still potential targets of attacks, as evidenced by the terrorist cell
captured in Bali on March 18.
While the risk of large-scale international attention-grabbing attacks is lower
than before, the real battle ahead lies in educating a new generation of
Indonesians to resist the propaganda about religion and violent struggle being
proffered by the old generation of charismatic Indonesian clerics and their
next generation disciples.
Jacob Zenn is a graduate of Georgetown Law's Global Law Scholars program and
was a State Department Critical Language Scholar in Indonesia in 2011. He
writes about regional affairs and insurgent movement in Southeast Asia, Central
Asia, and Nigeria. He can be contacted at [email protected].
(Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and republishing)
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