The Herald Times Sunday, 29 December 2002
Web of terrorists ready to wreak havoc
By RUSSELL GOULD
BEFORE the events in Bali on October 12, Jemaah Islamiyah was known as a radical
Muslim group believed responsible for a series of bombings throughout Indonesia, the
Philippines and Malaysia.
But a report by the International Crisis Group in Brussels gives the best indication yet
as to how JI works and its potential to wreak more havoc against Eastern and
Western targets.
According to the report, Jemaah Islamiyah was created in 1995 by Muslim clerics
Abdullah Sungkar and Abu Bakir Bashir, although Sungkar had been preaching the
group's main ideology, the creation of an Islamic state in southeast Asia, since the
1970s.
The two men founded a religious boarding school called Pondok Ngruki, which they
used to recruit many of the foot soldiers of JI. Bashir became sole leader when
Sungkar died in November 1999.
But a major rift has developed between him and the more devoted followers of
Sungkar, including Bali bombers Hambali and Mukhlas. They believe Bashir is
"insufficiently radical".
Intelligence reports suggest that in September this year, Bashir tried to stop the Bali
bombings because he felt they would have a negative effect on the group's cause.
JI has been described as a clandestine network of Islamic radicals that extends
across southeast Asia. It is led by Indonesian nationals and has a loose structure,
with four territorial divisions, known as mantiqis, which are made up of several
branches called wakalahs.
It operates through cells of terrorists, scattered across the four territories. But they
don't seem to have any real structure, with each cell apparently unaware of what
others are doing.
The leadership ladder consists of strategists, usually veterans of Muslim campaigns
including the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan, and a second tier of field
co-ordinators who are responsible for delivering money and explosives.
Then there is the bottom rung of people recruited shortly before attacks to drive cars,
survey targets and deliver the bombs. They are more at risk of arrest, injury or death.
Recruits are mostly young men from religious schools, like the ones established by
Bashir and Sungkar.
There, students are fed a rhetoric of allegiance to a jihad (holy war) and the
worthiness of the cause by men such as Mukhlas, who was a teacher at Luqmanul
Hakiem school in Malaysia.
Dozens of camps are believed scattered throughout Indonesia, some of which have
foreign trainers. Recruits are taught bomb making and combat skills.
Until the Bali attack, JI's motivation for bombings was religious, specifically the
massacre of Muslims by Christians in the Indonesian cities Maluku, North Maluku
and Poso in 1999 and 2000.
Potential members were shown videos about those massacres and discussion
centred on revenge. Targets were mainly churches and priests.
JI is believed to have recruited up to 2000 members in Indonesia, and 200 throughout
Malaysia, on the basis of religious revenge.
But the renewed focus of world powers, led by the US, on ridding the world of Islamic
terrorist groups appears to have altered JI's objectives, with Westerners rather than
Indonesians their new target.
© Herald and Weekly Times
|
