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
Zopensource123@gmail.com.
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