An article in The National Post (Canada), 25 February 2006, reporting on
Southeast Asian approaches to countering Islamic radicalization.
Saturday » February 25 » 2006
Reason to live: In Southeast Asia, fighting terror includes fighting for the
minds of suicide bombers
by Stewart Bell
The National Post
Saturday, February 25, 2006
JAKARTA - Tapping on his laptop computer, wearing a white polo shirt and Rolex,
Nasir Abas looks like an ordinary Asian businessman -- until he begins to talk
about his days as a terrorist.
The 36-year-old Malaysian admits he was a leader of Jemaah Islamiyah and that
he trained some of Southeast Asia's worst terrorists, notably the bombers who
blew up Western tourist hangouts in Bali in 2002.
Mr. Abas is on the United Nations list of "individuals belonging to or
associated with al-Qaeda." He is also on Canada's list of terrorists. So is
Jemaah Islamiyah, which Ottawa calls the "most extensive transnational > >
radical Islamist group in Southeast Asia."
But Mr. Abas says he has left Jemaah Islamiyah and is remorseful. To make
amends, he is co-operating with police and speaking out against terrorism to
students, community groups and anyone else who will listen.
"I feel guilty for what I have done," he says over lunch at an Indian
restaurant in Jakarta, where he lives with his wife and four daughters.
"I feel I have sinned."
Mr. Abas and others like him are becoming key weapons in the war on terror in
Southeast Asia, where they are helping spread the word that terrorism is wrong
and not part of Islam's true teachings.
After making hundreds of arrests, governments in the region have concluded that
terrorism cannot be fought properly without confronting the ideology behind it.
And to help get out the anti-terrorism message, they are making use of a
powerful tool: reformed terrorists.
Leading the pack is Singapore. The city-state has set up a program that is
challenging the ideological underpinnings of Jemaah Islamiyah and al-Qaeda.
The program originated in late 2001, when Singapore's Internal Security
Department thwarted a terrorist plot by local members of Jemaah Islamiyah and
Canadian al-Qaeda operative Mohammed Mansour Jabarah.
Following the arrests, the Singapore government wanted to know what was
motivating Muslims to turn to terrorism, so it brought in prominent Islamic
scholars to try to understand their thinking.
What they found was that the captured terrorists shared an extremely limited
interpretation of Islam. "These people, they just adopted one school of thought
and that's it," said Muhammad Haniff Bin Hassan, a research analyst at the
Institute for Defence and Strategic Studies at Nanyang Technological University
in Singapore. "Either they did not want to hear from others or they were not
given the privilege because they studied under very strict secrecy."
He said the terrorists had not been properly instructed. "Most of them are
born-again Muslims and because of their narrow understanding of Islam, they
were easily swayed."
Their core beliefs were that to be a good Muslim they had to: hate non-Muslims;
strive to create an Islamic state; and engage in armed jihad.
Another common belief was that they could not break the bayat, or oath of
allegiance, that they had sworn to the cause.
Taken together, these made for a potent ideology. To tackle it Singapore formed
a Religious Rehabilitation Group, made up of about 20 Islamic scholars known as
ustadzs.
One of the duties of an ustadz it is to ensure that Islam is properly
interpreted. The Singaporeans also put together a manual on terrorist ideology
and how to confront it.
"In the initial stage of the counselling program, we listen to them, we let
them talk," said Mohamed Bin Ali, an ustadz who works on the program and is
also a research analyst at NTU. "Then if we feel there are concepts that need
to be countered, we step in."
Since the terrorists tend to cite classical Islamic texts such as the Koran to
support their radical interpretation of their religion, the ustadzs use those
same texts to show the detainees they have actually misread the message of
Islam.
"The main aim of the program is to provide an avenue for the detainees to
overcome the ideas of Islam that they may have misconstrued, and also to make
them aware of what are the consequences if they attack a city like Singapore,"
said Mr. Ali.
Those involved in the program say that while some of the detainees have not
responded to counseling, the counter-ideology effort has generally been
successful. Those deemed to no longer pose a threat have been released on a
restriction order, which requires them to stay in the country and continue
counseling under strict supervision.
On Oct. 24, for example, the government released Andrew Gerard, a Muslim
convert who had scouted bombing targets for Jemaah Islamiyah. Officials said
that since his arrest in 2002 he had cooperated with investigators, responded
positively to rehabilitation and religious counseling and was no longer a
threat to Singapore. But if he violates the conditions of his
release he could be placed under arrest once again.
As part of the program, counselors work with the families of detainees to
ensure the children stay in school and do not follow the same path to
radicalization as their fathers. The ustadzs have also held several public
meetings with both the Muslim and non-Muslim communities.
Not only have several detainees been deprogrammed, but more importantly
Singapore believes the program is helping immunize its broader Muslim community
against extremist ideology.
Mr. Hassan is not sure if the work in Singapore can be applied elsewhere. "I
would not basically want to say whether the experience could be adopted in
Canada or not, but there are lessons to be learned."
The most important lesson may be the importance of involving the Muslim
community in the fight against terrorism, and that one way of doing that is to
encourage Muslim scholars to take the lead in identifying and correcting
dangerously extreme interpretations of Islam.
A recent report by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), however,
suggests that radical Islamic terrorists have been so heavily indoctrinated
they may be beyond reform. It notes that some detainees released from
Guantanamo Bay have quickly returned to militancy.
To be rehabilitated, someone must believe that violence is morally wrong and
fear punishment if they are caught, but for Islamic extremists, "these social
parameters do not apply," says the "Secret" CSIS report, released under the
Access to Information Act.
"Individuals who have attended terrorist training camps or who have
independently opted for radical Islam must be considered threats to Canadian
public safety for the indefinite future."
For Nasir Abas, his arrest in April 2003 marked the end of a lifelong
commitment to armed Islamic struggle. Born in Singapore and raised in Malaysia,
Mr. Abas was studying at an Islamic school when extremists offered to pay his
way to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets.
He underwent training at a camp south of Sadda, Pakistan, and was sent into
battle, at one point suffering a bullet wound to his hand. For the next six
years, he worked as a training camp instructor, teaching recruits how to use
weapons ranging from small arms to artillery.
In 1993, he returned to Malaysia to look for a job, but after stints in
construction and carpentry, he went to the southern Philippines to set up a
training camp for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
He got back to Malaysia in 1996, married and worked as a cab driver in Johor
Bahru, on the border with Singapore.
In August 1997, he was appointed a chief of Jemaah Islamiyah and was later
named commander of Mantiki 3, one of the group's regional divisions.
When Jemaah Islamiyah ramped up its terrorist bombing campaign in 2000,
striking churches, Mr Abas said he became uneasy with the group's change in
direction. He said the group had fallen under the spell of Osama bin Laden, who
had started calling for attacks against Western civilians, which Mr. Abas said
is a deviation from Islam.
The following year, one of the JI members Mr. Abas had trained, Fathur Rahman
Al Ghozi, worked with his Canadian al-Qaeda accomplice Mohammed Jabarah to
attempt to blow up the American and Israeli embassies in Singapore, a plot that
was stopped by authorities.
In October, 2002, another two men trained by Mr. Abas, Imam Samudra and Ali
Imron, killed 200 people in Bali, mostly Australian tourists. The police
investigation that followed led to the arrests of Jemaah Islamiyah members who
identified Mr. Abas as their boss.
By the time he was arrested on April 18, 2003, Mr. Abas said he had already
turned against JI because of its targeting of civilians. "What they had done
was not in the battlefield, not in the conflict area," he explained.
Almost immediately, he began cooperating with police, providing inside details
of Jemaah Islamiyah's structure and ideology. He identified Abu Bakar Bashir as
the top leader of JI (Bashir calls Mr. Abas a traitor and denies the existence
of JI).
Mr. Abas was freed in November, 2004, but he is still paying off his debt to
Indonesia. Whenever JI members are arrested, Mr. Abas is brought in to speak to
them. He tries to convince them to co-operate with police.
As a former commander and trainer, he knows many of them personally. He has
also written an Indonesian-language book about JI and gives public talks about
the group and its misguided ideology.
He said his main challenge is to convince Indonesians that there really is a JI
when to this day some still believe that the Bali and other bombings were
orchestrated by the West to tarnish Islam and justify the war against terror.
"Firstly, I want to explain that JI is not created. JI exists. Second thing, I
have to explain that what they have done, the Bali bombings, that they have
deviant ideologies. Third thing, I always explain that Islam does not teach
violence."
Inspector-General Ansyaad Mbai, a senior Indonesian counter-terrorism official,
said close to 300 arrests have taken place since the bombings in Bali and at
the Australian embassy and JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta.
But that JI still somehow survives suggests that attacking the ideology is the
best long-term solution. "The use of only 'high-power' in terms of law
enforcement, arrests and even military retaliation is not a good answer. We
need to touch the root causes through the approach of 'soft-power.' "
© National Post 2006
Copyright © 2006 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks
Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
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