The Jakarta Post, Tuesday, July 03, 2007
When jihadists go online
Noor Huda Ismail, Jakarta
Aris Widodo and Arif Syaifudin were among the suspected terrorists the police
arrested on June 9. The two, police say, were tasked by alleged Jamaah Islamiyah
military wing commander Abu Dujana to send and receive emails from JI counterparts
here and abroad.
The terror group's use of the Internet as a medium of communication is a phenomenon
that looks paradoxical for a movement generally regarded as anti-Western. In the
World Wide Web, they discovered a friendly method of communication. It fulfills their
need for secrecy and camouflage more effectively than any other medium, and allows
them to transmit messages around the globe instantly.
The trend to utilize the Internet by jihadists, especially via email and websites, as a
central means to disseminate or propagate their beliefs, and quite often for fund
raising, is not a new development. A diligent jihadist can easily surf the Internet and
finds sites in order to keep up with jihad activities in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya and
Israel.
One such example is Al-Muhajirun. This is the Internet site of a British organization
that openly declares its intention to work for the establishment of a caliphate.
On jihad, its website says: "The Muslim, if he does not get the honor to participate in
the battlefield with mujahideen (jihad warrior), he should be engaged on speaking
about the jihad, promoting the jihad and mujahideen."
Here in Indonesia, the use of email as a means of communication is very common
among jihadists. It suggests that the terrorists are not the ignorant individuals most
people in our society think. In fact, they are computer savvy and understand how to
exploit the Internet to cement their ties and networks.
An Afghan veteran and JI talent scout for suicide bombers, Tony Togar, in an interview
in a Medan prison said that Asmar Latin Sani, the JW Marriott Hotel suicide bomber,
sent him an email saying that he was ready to "get married" as a code for being a
suicide bomber.
Abdullah Sunata, a former leader of hard-line group KOMPAK in Ambon, used the
code "sexy girl" to communicate with Dulmatin and Umar Patek, who sought
sanctuary with the Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines.
Also, when JI still had a branch in Pakistan, Gun Gun, Hambali's younger brother,
was asked to act as an intermediary for email exchanges with alleged al-Qaeda
operatives.
After his release from prison, Abu Bakar Ba'asyir made some positive comments to
his followers. "Don't do bombings here in Indonesia," he told his followers.
However, his "fatwa" discouraging violence in Indonesia has not been well received by
fringe young and impassioned jihadi recruits. Young jihadis have instead turned to the
Internet to download fatwas from mainly Middle Eastern jihadists, including fatwas
from the late Jordanian born Zarqawi and a jailed Saudi Arabian cleric, Al Maqdisi.
These examples illustrate how effective jihadi websites have become in turning the
hearts and minds of young Muslims toward radicalism. The consequences of jihadi
websites are likely to reverberate far beyond the artificial world of the Internet.
The various means to keep messages and information hidden online are a practice
that jihadi groups will continue to build on and refine in the future. This may be part of
the explanation for how in the last seven years JI has shown resilience as a
clandestine organization and demonstrated an ability to adapt to internal rifts and
crackdowns by the authorities.
The ease of the Internet is also the reason why jihadists are keen using it. One
jihadist commented to me that "the sprawling and anarchic nature of web makes it
easy to operate: Just put up a site, run it until it is closed down, and then put it up
again somewhere else".
Therefore, there is no choice for Indonesian authorities and beyond but to constantly
monitor such websites to track and trace the war that has been declared in both the
electronic and real worlds.
An ideology of violence still occupies the minds of a fringe group of impassionate
young recruits who are disappointed with their old leaders, whom they believe have
abandoned the call of jihad.
Without careful and well-planed efforts and initiatives to counter their virulent
justification of violence, the Indonesian government and beyond may suffer from more
terrorist attacks, which although simply planed and implemented can still kill many
people.
The writer is a security consultant at Sekurido Global Consulting. He can be reached
at www.sekuridogroup.com
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