Medan, Indonesia – Within the early 2000s, the potential for terror assaults in Southeast Asia appeared dramatically totally different from at the moment.
Indonesia was rocked by the Christmas Eve church bombings on December 24, 2000, that killed 18 individuals. Simply six days later, Metro Manila within the Philippines skilled comparable bombings that killed 22 individuals.
In 2002, a sequence of bombings ripped by means of a well-liked nightlife spot in Bali, Indonesia, killing greater than 200 individuals and leaving at the least one other 200 wounded.
Within the following years, the JW Marriott Lodge, the Philippine Inventory Alternate and the consulate, all in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta, have been attacked, as have been different places throughout Southeast Asia.
The group answerable for the assaults, and others, was Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), whose members aspired to determine a hardline Islamic state in Indonesia and throughout wider Southeast Asia.
Usually referred to by its initials, JI was alleged to have operatives in Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia and the Philippines, and was stated to be linked to different teams, together with al-Qaeda and the Moro Islamic Liberation Entrance (MILF) within the Philippines’ Mindanao island.
Although JI was answerable for an extended record of atrocities and lots of of casualties within the early 2000s – its final recorded assault was the bombing of a police compound in West Java province in 2011 – the group, and the worry of terror assaults, is basically forgotten within the area now.
So, how did Indonesia’s and different governments in Southeast Asia successfully curtail a regional menace whereas the United States-led “struggle on terror” left total international locations shattered and areas of the world in chaos following the September 11, 2001 assaults on the US?
“The early 2000s actually felt harmful on the time,” Zachary Abuza, a professor on the Nationwide Battle Faculty in Washington, DC, informed Al Jazeera.
“However the Bali bombing actually shook Indonesia out of its complacency. The brand new terrorism regulation modified the general public notion of the perceived degree of hazard and the authorities had free rein to do their work with out political interference,” Abuza stated.
‘It broke JI’s again’
On the time of the Bali bombings in late 2002, Indonesia didn’t have particular and focused antiterrorism laws, though this was shortly drafted and signed into regulation in 2003 and utilized retroactively to a few of the perpetrators of the assault on the favored vacation island.
Three senior members of JI, Imam Samudra, Ali Ghufron and Amrozi, have been shortly arrested, prosecuted, and executed in 2008 for his or her roles in masterminding the bombings.
A fourth perpetrator, Ali Imron, was sentenced to life in jail.
In 2003, Hambali, a Malaysia-based member of JI, allegedly answerable for securing funding for the group, was arrested in Thailand after spending months hiding out within the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.
Renditioned by the US, Hambali was tortured at CIA “black websites” earlier than being transferred to the US navy’s infamous Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba the place he stays imprisoned to at the present time for his alleged position within the Bali bombings.
Indonesia and different governments within the area continued to shut the web between JI members and their leaders.
In 2007, Abu Dujana, the top of JI’s navy operations, was arrested. In 2010, Abu Bakar Bashir, the “non secular head” of the organisation, was captured and sentenced to fifteen years in jail. He was launched early in January 2021.
“When individuals have been arrested, it broke JI’s again,” Abuza stated.
“However JI as an organisation nonetheless existed and the federal government gave it ample house to exist, permitting it to run its madrasas [Islamic educational institutions], charities and companies,” he stated.
The Indonesian authorities formally declared JI an unlawful organisation in 2008, however authorities took a extra measured method by persevering with to permit its members a level of autonomy offered they didn’t have interaction in violence.
‘Jihad as a non secular battle’
Based on Farihin, a member of JI based mostly in Indonesia, the organisation stays energetic, though it has now modified its philosophy to one among pacifism and focuses on works corresponding to non secular instructing and different socially-minded causes.
“There is no such thing as a give attention to violence now,” he informed Al Jazeera.
“Solely on jihad as a non secular battle to protect in opposition to our private sins as people,” he stated.
“All religions have this idea in some type.”
Whereas Farihin nonetheless describes himself as a member of JI, he stated the unique grouping has fractured and splintered many occasions over time, owing to individuals having totally different views and opinions.
These variations of opinion are commonly cited as another excuse for the success of the regional method to the so-called “struggle on terror” – a mixture of inside political disputes and exterior safety operations.
By 2007, Abuza recounted, JI was “riddled by factionalism” as remaining members of the organisation jostled for energy and clashed on tips on how to create a blueprint for his or her operations shifting ahead.
“Abu Dujana had totally different concepts for the organisation and felt that bombing foreigners was not the best way to realize its goals,” Abuza stated.
“Sufficient individuals in JI thought it was greatest to lie low after the Bali bombing and that the assault had not been productive,” he stated.
“Abu Dujana was not arguing that killing foreigners was morally improper, simply that it was not productive as, with every assault and subsequent arrests, the organisation was getting weaker.”
Counterterrorism work continues
Indonesia additionally got here a great distance with reference to creating an efficient counterterrorism framework that has considerably weakened networks of potential attackers throughout the area, stated Alif Satria, a researcher on the division of politics and social change on the Centre for Strategic and Worldwide Research in Indonesia.
“First is the creation of Densus 88 in 2003 by means of the assistance of different international locations. This has ensured that Indonesia has a well-functioning counterterrorism unit with the mandatory intelligence and operational abilities to dismantle networks,” Satria informed Al Jazeera.
Densus 88 or Counterterrorism Particular Detachment 88, was a unit shaped in 2003 beneath the umbrella of the Nationwide Police and was funded, outfitted, and educated partly by the US and Australia.
Satria added that one other milestone was the creation of Indonesia’s Nationwide Counterterrorism Company (BNPT) in 2010.
Deradicalisation programmes led by the police within the early 2000s have been additionally vital in making certain that these arrested didn’t re-engage with hardline teams as soon as they have been launched.
“Because of this, Indonesia has managed to maintain its recidivism price at round 11 %,” he stated.
Nonetheless, the counterterrorism work carried out by the Indonesian authorities continues to be in progress.
Who will emerge subsequent?
Open-source information assortment exhibits that between 2021 and 2023, extra JI members have been arrested than members of different teams corresponding to Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), an ISIL-affiliated group answerable for latest assaults in Indonesia and the broader area.
A few of the newer incidents embrace the 2018 Surabaya bombings wherein three Christian church buildings have been attacked within the metropolis of Surabaya by a husband and spouse and their 4 kids, one among whom was simply 9 years outdated. Fifteen individuals have been killed.
The identical group was additionally behind the Jolo Cathedral bombings in Sulu within the Philippines in 2019 that killed 20 individuals.
“Between 2021 and 2023, there have been some 610 individuals arrested, 42 % of whom have been JI and 39 % JAD and different pro-Islamic State teams,” Satria stated.
“For me, that goes to point out that, regardless of not conducting assaults, JI may be very a lot nonetheless energetic, be it in conducting recruitment, fundraising or getting ready for its regeneration,” he stated.
Abuza agreed with that cautious tone, saying the shortage of clear management on a worldwide scale for hardline teams had additionally contributed to a common sense of quintessence.
However that might shortly change.
“These organisations live organisations and reply to the exterior surroundings,” Abuza stated.
“Everyone seems to be ready to see what occurs within the Center East and who emerges as a frontrunner,” he stated.
“Somebody will,” he added.
