Indonesia's fizzling terrorist
threat By Bill Guerin
JAKARTA - Within hours of his release from
prison, Abu Bakar Ba'asyir wasted no time
reiterating his jihadi mission. The firebrand
Islamic cleric, identified by the United States
and Australia as one of Southeast Asia's most
dangerous terrorists, urged Indonesian Muslims to
"unite behind the Islamic goal and strengthen the
Islamic brotherhood and work to establish sharia"
(Islamic law).
Ba'asyir, 68, widely
recognized as the spiritual head of the militant
Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) organization, was convicted
last year on conspiracy charges related to his
role in the 2002 Bali bombing that killed more
than 200 people. His early release after
serving 25 and a half months
was criticized by US and Australian officials for
being much too lenient, and some have warned it
could re-energize the JI network he allegedly
heads.
But how much of a threat does JI
really pose nowadays? Indonesia's US-trained and
-equipped elite police counter-terrorism team,
known locally as Detachment 88, has recently
captured or killed more than 200 suspected
JI-linked militants. The legal status of most of
the detainees is unclear, though officials say
they are being held under 2003 anti-terrorism
legislation that allows for detention without
trial.
Indonesian police have recently
made some high-profile hits. They ran down
Malaysian geophysicist Azahari Bin Husin, JI's
chief bomb maker, who allegedly designed the
explosives for the 2002 Bali bombing, the Marriott
Hotel bombing of 2003, and the 2004 bomb attack on
the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. He blew himself
up before security officials could nab him, though
they did uncover evidence of plans for future bomb
attacks. Indonesian authorities say that nearly
all of the militant suspects in their custody have
cited Ba'asyir as their inspiration. (Ba'asyir,
for his part, has consistently denied that JI
exists.)
Ba'asyir's release could give a
big boost to regional jihadists, US and Australian
officials warn. Speaking to to a delegation of
foreign creditors from the Consultative Group on
Indonesia soon after the release, President Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono said, "Our national efforts to
combat terrorism are not measured by the release
of Ba'asyir. We are fully committed in continuing
the fight against terrorism."
Syamsir
Siregar, head of the State Intelligence Agency
(BIN), meanwhile, expressed his hopes after
Ba'asyir's release that he will cooperate with
terrorism investigators to nab militant suspects.
Australia and the US have asked Indonesia
to keep Ba'asyir under 24-hour watch, but the
Justice Ministry has said his release was
unconditional. Kevin Rudd, Australia's federal
opposition spokesman on foreign affairs and trade,
said it means that there is now an
"anti-Australian, anti-Western mass murderer on
the loose in Indonesia".
A US Embassy
spokesman said there was cause for concern: "We
were deeply disappointed that a person convicted
of a sinister conspiracy was given such a short
prison sentence."
Despite calls from
Washington and Canberra, Jemaah Islamiyah still
has not been banned in Indonesia. Yudhoyono,
echoing Ba'asyir's line, says there still is not
enough evidence to establish that the organization
actually exists. Western terrorism experts and the
Singaporean government have issued a series of
in-depth research reports that chronicle JI's
history, accomplished and foiled plots, and
alleged members. Those reports, drawing on
regional intelligence sources, say JI has a vision
of carving out a new pan-Islamic state across
Southeast Asia encompassing Indonesia, Malaysia,
Singapore and parts of the Philippines and
Thailand.
What's unclear is whether that
literature is now out of date. Some terrorism
experts believe that the recent crackdown has
severely dented JI's operations and splintered its
leadership. According to counter-terrorism
official Syamsir, JI is now controlled by three
hardline Indonesians: Zulkarnaen, the alleged
commander of the militant wing; explosives expert
Abu Dujana; and operations chief Zuhroni. Noordin
Mohamed Top, a Malaysian accused of orchestrating
a series of JI-inspired bombings in Indonesia, is
still at large and allegedly takes his orders from
the top three, according to Siregar.
Terrorism experts say that the 2003 arrest
of JI operations chief Riduan Isamuddin, or
Hambali, in Thailand was a major blow to JI's
organization and operations. Hambali, who has been
dubbed by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
the Osama bin Laden of Southeast Asia, is being
held at an undisclosed location by US officials.
Indonesian officials point to the lack of
any significant terrorist attacks over the past 18
months as evidence that JI's potency has been
reduced as a result of the recent crackdown.
Pleasing the West Indonesia's
strategic significance to the United States
assumed a new and urgent dimension after the
September 11, 2001, terror attacks. Southeast Asia
was soon thereafter identified by Washington as
its second front of the "global war on terror". US
officials have since worked hand-in-hand with
regional security forces, particularly in the
Philippines, Thailand and Singapore, to track and
apprehend suspected terrorists.
Indonesia,
with its complex political dynamics and fractured
internal security apparatus, was until recently
viewed by the US as the weakest link in its
regional counter-terrorism campaign. Washington
had frequently warned of terrorist cells and
planned attacks, including intelligence reports
that presaged the 2002 Bali bombing.
Former US ambassador to Indonesia Ralph
"Skip" Boyce had frequently chastised president
Megawati Sukarnoputri's government for failing to
neutralize the terrorist threat. After repeated US
warnings fell on deaf ears, Washington threatened
to withdraw its diplomatic presence in Jakarta
apart from essential staff members.
Megawati's inaction was rooted in her
concerns about a possible nationalist backlash and
breakup of her fragile coalition government -
members of which, notably the vice president, were
sympathetic to fundamentalist Islamic causes - if
she launched a crackdown on suspected Islamic
militants. Moreover, a crackdown would have handed
the military new powers at a time Megawati was
striving to end the military's dominant role in
politics.
Washington drastically changed
its tune after the election of Yudhoyono in
September 2004. During an official visit to
Indonesia in March, US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice referred to the country as a
model of democratic and moderate Islam. Following
up, B Lynn Pascoe, the current US ambassador to
Indonesia, said, "I am struck by the dramatic
changes in the US-Indonesian relationship. Our
presidents have met three times during a short
period for substantive discussions of bilateral
and global issues."
Last year the US
resumed military-to-military contacts with the
Indonesian military (TNI) after nearly a decade's
suspension because of human-rights issues,
including the TNI's involvement in the devastation
of East Timor in 1999. More recently, Washington
has also dangled the prospect of a bilateral
free-trade agreement with Jakarta, similar to the
pacts it has signed or is negotiating with
regional strategic allies in Singapore, Australia
and Thailand.
Washington has supported
Yudhoyono's quiet, yet tough, tack. The US Embassy
in Jakarta quietly vets potential members of the
Detachment 88 counter-terrorism unit it supports
for their individual human-rights records. And
Yudhoyono's government's gradual arrest of more
than 200 suspected militants has so far failed to
generate major media or human-rights groups'
attention.
Instead, counter-terrorism
officials have focused on the few high-profile
catches. The key actors responsible for the Bali
attacks have been identified, caught and tried.
Three of them were sentenced to death. Last
September, suspected JI militants Ahmad Hasan and
Iwan Darmawan Mutho were also given death
sentences for their alleged roles in the 2004
Australian Embassy bombing.
Publicly
moderate, privately tough A retired army
general and former top security minister, the
US-trained Yudhoyono clearly fits the mold of
Washington's idea of a model Muslim leader:
publicly moderate but behind-the-scenes tough on
terrorism. Those credentials apparently helped to
assuage the US administration's previous concerns
about the Indonesian military's spotty
human-rights record. In February 2005, just five
months into Yudhyono's term, the US lifted
long-running restrictions and resumed full
International Military Education and Training
(IMET) for Indonesian armed forces.
In his
meeting this month with US Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld, Yudhoyono said he wanted to
establish a permanent military relationship with
the US. He has a friend in Rumsfeld, but
detractors in Congress. Asked about human-rights
reforms in Indonesia's military, Rumsfeld said he
did not believe that the ban on US military
assistance should have been imposed in the first
place. "I am not one of those people who believe
that every country should be like the United
States," he said.
Indonesian Foreign
Affairs Minister Hassan Wirayuda noted a "growing
and accepted view in the US to see Indonesia in a
much broader context than in snapshots of events
like human-rights violations ... and military
reform".
Of course a politically stable,
US-friendly Indonesia serves Washington's broad
foreign-policy objectives of combating terrorism
and consolidating its military positions in the
region - notably at a time China's influence is
growing. The US is particularly concerned about
possible terrorist threats to the Malacca Strait,
the waterway separating Malaysia, Indonesia and
Singapore that links the Indian and Pacific Oceans
and through which half of the world's oil supplies
and a third of global commerce flows.
Piracy is rampant in the Malacca Strait,
and US and Southeast Asian intelligence services
are reportedly investigating possible links
between pirates and terrorist groups, particularly
JI. The terror rationale: a strike on shipping
lanes would cause massive political and economic
disruption and make vulnerable the United States'
security installations in the region. A bigger US
naval presence in the Malacca Strait also
conveniently puts Beijing on edge, as most of
China's fuel imports travel through the narrow
shipping lane.
The US has been pushing to
play a bigger role in counter-terrorism patrols,
which some Association of Southeast Asian Nations
members, particularly Malaysia, have at least
privately resisted.
Indonesian Defense
Minister Juwono Sudarsono also warned Rumsfeld
that the US should not interfere too much in
regional counter-terrorism efforts.
"The
primary responsibility for security and
anti-terrorism measures should lie with national
governments, rather than the US forcing its will
on other countries," Sudarsono said. "As the
largest Muslim country, we are very aware of the
perception ... that the United States is
overbearing, which creates a sense of threat for
many groups."
For Washington, a closer
relationship with a democratic and moderate
Indonesia is an important confirmation that the
"war against terrorism" is not a confrontation
with Islam, even though there has definitely been
an upsurge in Islamic extremist groups in
Indonesia since the fall of president Suharto in
1998.
Islamic groups are lobbying to
transform the historically secular country into an
Islamic state, while others like JI allegedly
still want to pursue jihad against the West. The
majority of Southeast Asia's Muslims, including in
Indonesia, have widely rejected Islamic radicalism
at democratic polls - a point Washington has only
belatedly awoken to.
Any indication that
Washington is somehow backing state-sponsored
human-rights abuses in the pursuit of
counter-terrorism policies would hand Indonesia's
radicals an important victory - as it has in Iraq.
As the US and Yudhoyono's administration draw
closer together in fighting the "war on terror"
and beyond, there is still a deep sense of
mistrust among even moderate Muslims about
Washington's intentions.
Therein lies the
rub behind Ba'asyir's release, which was done in
spite of shrill US and Australian objections. If
and when the radical cleric resumes his
intolerant, anti-US rhetoric, his speeches will be
closely monitored. And if the bombs start to blast
again, he'll be the first suspect called in for
interrogation. But increasingly, it seems that
Ba'asyir and JI - at least for now - are shadows
of their former larger selves, and that behind the
public posturing the US and Australia couldn't be
happier with Yudhoyono's counter-terrorism
policies.
Bill Guerin, a Jakarta
correspondent for Asia Times Online since 2000,
has worked in Indonesia for 20 years, mostly in
journalism and editorial positions. He has been
published by the BBC on East Timor and specializes
in business/economic and political analysis
related to Indonesia. He can be reached at
softsell@prima.net.id.
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