http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/kinghit-ji-down-but-not-out/2007/06/15/1181414542846.html
King-hit JI down but not out Indonesian police captured Zarkasih (left), a senior commander of Jemaah Islamiah, a few hours after arresting Indonesia's most wanted man Abu Dujana (right). Photo: Reuters Ap Mark Forbes and Daniel Flitton June 16, 2007 THE man militant followers called the "guru" lived with his wife and young children in a simple, ramshackle house in Kebarongan village in Central Java, seemingly unaware of a tightening cordon of police agents. Last Saturday morning Abu Dujana and his three children were almost home on his motorbike when black-clad members of Detachment 88, Indonesia's crack anti-terrorist squad, jumped him. According to one neighbour, Paryo, they grabbed Dujana's neck and wrenched him off, scattering the children. Two police held him to the ground, then the trio scrabbled for a handgun. One policeman pushed the gun against Dujana's thigh and "bang", said Paryo. Dujana had been living quietly in the village for nearly eight months, posing as a simple bag seller. Locals were amazed to hear he was Indonesia's most-wanted man, rated by police as the most significant terrorist threat to the nation in his role as a military commander of the Jemaah Islamiah terror network. The capture was the culmination of a six-month operation by Detachment 88, assisted by Australian police training, surveillance technology and agents on the ground. It illustrates just how far Indonesian police have evolved since the first Bali bombing, where the blast scene wasn't secured for nearly a day and crucial evidence disturbed. Six hours later Detachment 88 swooped again, plucking a potentially greater prize, arresting Zarkasih, also known as Nuaim, in Yogyakarta. Since 2004 Zarkasih, who fought in Afghanistan alongside Dujana, has commanded the entire JI operation. For Jemaah Islamiah these are the heaviest of blows, robbing the organisation of its two most senior commanders and graduates of al-Qaeda's Afghanistan academy of terror. According to Ansyaad Mbai, head of counter terrorism at Indonesia's Security Ministry, last weekend's operation is "more significant than previous counter terrorism operations". South-East Asia director of the International Crisis Group, Sidney Jones, described the arrests as "extremely important", exposing the entire JI operation. Investigators now have access to a walking treasure trove of intelligence. Zarkasih should know all JI's secrets and Dujana most of them as a member of its central command and military chief of its largest stronghold in Java. Dujana was the conduit between the organisation's mainstream and the radical splinter network run by the architect of the bombings in Bali and of Australia's Jakarta embassy, Noordin Top. Under Zarkasih's and Dujana's orders, JI members ensured Top evaded a massive police manhunt for four years. They also built up a large arsenal of weapons and explosives (enough for four more Bali bombings, police say) to assist the establishment of an Islamic state. Jones says the pair are men who could tell all from "the sources of financing to international connections, to personnel, to internal feuds, the structure". In one blow the organisation has lost two significant leaders, important figures in the diminishing "Afghanistan generation"'. Their credibility, kudos and experience is almost irreplaceable, Jones believes. Attention had to be paid to JI's recruitment base, but the captures were a "significant spanner in the works", she says. The cascading captures indicates ongoing success on gathering intelligence from those arrested. Under Dujana's orders, JI members ensured Top evaded a massive police manhunt for four years. They also built up a large arsenal of weapons and explosives (enough for four more Bali bombings, police say) to assist the establishment of an Islamic state. Abu Dujana joined a motley collection of young men drawn from across the world to the Afghan war in the 1980s; one of a handful of Indonesians attracted by the call to defend Islam from the Soviet invasion. How Dujana spent his time in the rugged region is not exactly known - only a few of the foreign volunteers in Afghanistan ever saw battle. Instead, Dujana probably included, they mostly existed on the margins of the conflict, enjoying the company of their fellow zealots. A few were taught how to construct makeshift bombs. But some foreigners did go on to play a major part in the long struggle against the Soviet army, joining with local Afghans flush with Saudi and US money to drive back a world superpower. Together, these fighters helped invent the mystic of the modern Islamic warrior - the mujahideen. After the first Bali attacks the spectre of JI loomed across the Indonesian archipelago and the wider region. Authorities tracked JI cadre to the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia. Senior leaders boasted links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organisation, including Hambali, the alleged mastermind of the Bali bombings now on trial at Guantanamo Bay. Police discovered JI had even set up a support branch in Australia. Nearly five years on, the campaign against JI is held up as a counter-terrorism success. Although authorities still regard JI as a threat, they argue its ability to carry out terrorist attacks is now diminished. From 2002, Australian police and intelligence agencies have poured support and nearly $400 million into regional efforts to help eliminate the JI network. After the Bali bombing, analysts believe the remnants of JI were torn apart in a massive internal debate. The group split between those who saw their struggle as part of a global fight against the West and others who thought their principal aim should be to establish an Islamic state in South-East Asia. The splinter cell led by Top kept up attacks on the West. Top is still on the run, with plenty of places to hide - more than 60 per cent of Indonesia's 17,504 islands are unnamed. But despite Dujana's large explosive hoards, Jones says he disagreed with the fullscale terrorist attacks carried out by Top believing they attracted too much pressure and did little to generate recruitment, although he provided the means for Top to remain at large. The weapons and ongoing military training simply demonstrates JI remains a military organisation, believing in the need to be prepared to fight for Islamic (Sharia) law. The cells under Dujana would probably target local officials over Western interests and were more focused on fermenting religious conflict at a local level as a means of radicalising a support base, says Jones. The arrests offer a new problem to assess: does JI remain in this consolidation phase? Greg Fealy, an Indonesia specialist at the Australian National University thinks it likely JI will stay on its current trajectory, but taking Dujana out of the picture might loosen that commitment. "It's still an open question," says Fealy. The hunt that ended in Dujana's dramatic capture this week was sparked in January when Wiwin Kalahe, suspect in a string of vicious sectarian murders including the beheading of three Christian schoolgirls, handed himself into police in the strife-torn province of Poso. Kalahe told police he had been sheltered in a series of JI safehouses in Java and identified their locations. Discrete surveillance was instituted and in March police followed two men to a meeting in the city of Yogyakarta. A shoot-out ensued, killing one leading JI figure, and police found M-16s, pistols and ammunition. The following day one of the four arrested led police to a weapons cache including 20 kilograms of TNT and 700 of potassium chlorate (more than double the amount used in the combined Bali blasts). Four more wanted terrorists were arrested within a week. All said they were under the command of Abu Dujana. Police seized a hand-drawn diagram depicting a new military structure for JI cells across Central Java, with Dujana its leader. The discoveries prompted police to elevate Dujana to their most wanted man, supplanting Top, and direct their search towards the rural district of Banyumas, three hours drive from Yogyakarta. Undercover agents, communications interceptions and physical surveillance finally led police to Kebarongan village. After seizing Dujana at the weekend, Detachment 88 officers swooped on seven more suspects, immediately pressing for details of Top's whereabouts. When news of Dujana's capture began to leak they denied it, concerned that it could cause Top to flee. On Wednesday, police spokesman Sisno Adiwinoto admitted that DNA evidence had confirmed they had Dujana, stating he was the leader of the military wing of JI and responsible for the uncovered weapons caches. He was involved in several bombings and sheltered the perpetrators of the Bali, Australian embassy and Marriott Hotel blasts, Adiwinoto said. Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty highlighted the significance of the arrest and admitted his agents were "forward deployed" as part of the operation. It was a highly sentimental victory as two of the AFP's most senior agents, Bryce Steele and Mark Scott, were engaged in the hunt when killed in the Yogyakarta plane crash in March, he said. According to Jones, the intelligence gathered in the stunningly successful series of raids provide a picture of a beleaguered and weakened - but resilient - JI. Since the 2002 Bali bombing, nearly 200 JI operatives or sympathisers have been jailed, including spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir. A series of small cells form the backbone of JI, with an estimated membership of about 1000, about half previous levels. Key al-Qaeda-linked leaders are gone and Top's colleague master bombmaker, Azahari Husin, was shot dead by police in 2005. The organisation's rebuilding phase retains the long-term goal of establishing an Islamic state. "JI continues to weaken but it is also an organisation with a long-term sense, talking about the need to marry all the bachelors in JI to make a new generation," says Jones. Measuring the extent of support for the new JI in Indonesian society is difficult. Sadanand Dhume, a former Jakarta-correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic Review and now a fellow with the Asia Society in Washington DC, argues Indonesia's secularists are being swamped by well-organised and persistent agents of fundamentalist Islam. "Too much attention is paid to terrorism and too little to Islamism," he said during a visit to Melbourne this week. "We may win the battle against terrorism and lose the war." Dhume sees JI as a symptom of a deeper malaise in Indonesia - a wellspring of growing religious intolerance. With traditional beliefs under assault by the modern world, religious extremists offer someone to blame with "very clear, very unambiguous answers to very difficult questions". Compare Indonesia today with a decade ago, he says and the space for religious dissent has narrowed. The political scene now features parties who offer tacit - sometimes open - support for religious violence. Dhume worries no-one is seriously confronting this ideology. Measuring community attitudes is never easy. Fealy contrasts the results in the 2004 election, where Islamic parties secured 22 per cent of the popular vote, to an earlier poll in 1955, when Islamic parties achieved 43 per cent. "Even though Indonesia is much more Islamic now than then, this is not so much a cause for concern," he says. Increasing religious observance has made little impact in the political sphere. Mark Forbes is The Age's Indonesia correspondent and Daniel Flitton is diplomatic editor. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Post message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] List owner : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! 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