Osama's death ripples in
Indonesia By Sara Schonhardt
JAKARTA - The death of Osama bin Laden at
the hands of United States Special Forces in
Pakistan this month has turned a lens on the
sustainability of his al-Qaeda radical offshoots,
with analysts weighing the strength of the
connections between the group he led and the
scores of small jihadi cells that operate across
the world.
Some analysts here predict Bin
Laden's death will have little impact on terror
groups in Indonesia, the world's most populous
Muslim country. Islamic fundamentalists have
struggled to gain a dominant foothold here amid
the syncretic form of Islam practiced by the
majority of adherents.
Others suggest it
could lead to acts of retribution by hardline
groups galvanized by his
martyrdom. The mixed threat perceptions are not
unusual: in a country often hailed by the West for
its religious tolerance and recent democratic
development, there are still radical fringes that
speak louder than their underlying numbers,
witnessed in a series of destructive terrorist
attacks.
On May 4, the Islamic Defenders
Front, or FPI, a group of thuggish ideologues
renowned for attacking bars and nightclubs in
defense of Islamic piety, held what they called a
mass prayer for Bin Laden. In reality, the
gathering revealed the FPI's proclivity for
responses that are heavy on rhetoric but weak on
action.
While calling Bin Laden a hero and
martyr, the radical group also said it doubted his
death. The FPI has recently been accused of
inciting sectarian violence, but has not been
linked to acts of terrorism. Other small rallies
held here to "avenge" Bin Laden's death carried
similarly weak threats of action.
What
worries analysts is that Bin Laden's death could
give a boost to his brand, which in Indonesia
served more as a source of inspiration than
operational direction. "If he becomes a myth it
would give ideological support to a lot of these
new decentralized groups that might not otherwise
have a central rallying point," said Evan
Laksmana, a security researcher at the
Jakarta-based Center for Strategic and
International Studies.
He argues that the
likelihood of that happening is small, noting past
swings in support for the al-Qaeda leader and his
advocacy of violent jihad. But as past efforts to
decapitate radical networks in Indonesia show,
charismatic leadership is no longer the most
important factor holding them together.
Mission accomplished? Since
2001, al-Qaeda has decentralized, splitting into
regional movements in the Arabian Peninsula and
Southeast Asia with diffuse leadership. While Bin
Laden did not directly advise the many groups that
used the al-Qaeda brand, his death is significant
because his icon served to unite members of both
old and fledgling extremist groups.
United
States authorities claimed after Bin Laden's
assassination that he commanded from remote
al-Qaeda terror cells in Somalia and Yemen. They
have said material recovered from his compound in
Pakistan showed that he was rehearsing statements,
a sign that he was still active in seclusion.
There is no evidence Bin Laden was
directly responsible for any of the attacks,
planned or thwarted, in Indonesia. Since the 9/11
attacks on the US, the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah
Islamiyah (JI) orchestrated some of Southeast
Asia's most violent acts of terrorism, including
the 2002 Bali bombing that killed over 200 people,
mostly foreign tourists.
In August 2006,
Ayman al-Zawahiri, then al-Qaeda's number two,
appeared on a recorded video saying that JI and
al-Qaeda had joined forces and had formed "one
line, facing its enemies". Yet al-Qaeda's brand of
large-scale terror, which often caused the deaths
of innocent Muslims here, was arguably already on
the wane in Indonesia before Bin Laden's death.
Working with the United States and
Australia to establish a counter-terrorism
intelligence unit known as Detachment 88,
Indonesian police have scored several big hits
against JI leaders, including the 2007 capture of
Abu Dujana, the JI's reputed head of military
operations, and the 2009 assassination of JI
recruiter and bomb-maker Noordin Top.
Over
the past decade, counter-terrorism police have
arrested more than 600 suspected terrorists and
brought around 500 of them to trial, according to
security officials. Last month, a Jakarta court
sentenced high-level suspected terrorist Abdullah
Sonata to 10 years in prison for providing arms to
a militant training camp in Aceh.
Abu
Bakar Bashir, a firebrand cleric believed to be
JI's spiritual head, is also on trial for funding
the camp. The verdict in his case, which could
apply the death penalty, is scheduled for
mid-June. Some analysts here say a guilty verdict
against him would cement the significant losses JI
has already suffered.
Unexplained
links Still, there are unanswered
questions about the extent of the JI's links to
al-Qaeda. Top terror suspect Umar Patek, a JI
member suspected of involvement in the 2002 Bali
bombing, was arrested in Abbottabad, the same town
in Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed.
Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro told
reporters last week that Patek planned to meet Bin
Laden, but a US counter-terrorism official told
the Associated Press it was "pure coincidence"
that both men were found hiding there.
Security analysts say Patek could provide
significant information about the connections
between Southeast Asian terrorist groups like JI
and their extremist counterparts in Pakistan. Like
many JI suspects, Patek was on the run. But the
frequency of his contact and nature of his
discussions with Bin Laden remain ambiguous.
What is clear, however, is that terror
groups in Indonesia have downsized under pressure.
"The violence here is small-group initiated, more
aimed at targeted killings than big bombings and
more aimed at local targets than foreigners," said
Sidney Jones, a senior analyst at the
International Crisis Group (ICG). ICG released a
report last month on how violent extremism
increasingly occurs independent of large jihadi
organizations like JI.
The shift has been
driven by successful law-enforcement activities
and changing ideological trends in the Middle
East, Jones said. "There can be international
changes that have an impact on the definition of
enemy and the choice of targets, even in a place
as peripheral as Indonesia," Jones said after
Patek's arrest. She suggested "Bin Laden's death
could change the direction back toward Western
targets, at least momentarily".
Images of
American youths cheering Bin Laden's demise on
television and headlines like the New York Daily's
May 2 edition, which read "Rot in Hell", may only
inflame radical sentiments. But for now the
potential for revenge attacks seems limited by the
diminished capacity and perceived disconnect of
Indonesia's extremist groups.
Many top JI
leaders fought with the mujahideen in Afghanistan
in the 1980s, but their younger counterparts now
receive more encouragement than training from the
old guard. With its leaders detained or
decapitated, JI has shifted toward more
recruitment activities, including sermons and
spreading information on the Internet. As such,
the response to Bin Laden's death is expected to
be met with more rhetoric than violence.
Sara Schonhardt is a freelance
writer based in Jakarta, Indonesia. She has lived
and worked in Southeast Asia for six years and has
a master's degree in international affairs from
Columbia University.
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