The Age, August 6, 2006
Bomb fears as mastermind waits to strike
AS INDONESIA enters the bombing season — the time of year when for the past four
years extremists have launched major terrorist attacks — experts are warning of the
risk of another atrocity.
[PHOTO: Wanted: Noordin Mohammed Top against the devastation of bomb blasts
that killed 23 people at Jimbaran Bay, Bali, last October. Photo: AP]
But amid the alarm, there is a glimmer of good news from the front line on the war on
terrorism. Jemaah Islamiah, the group blamed for the attacks carried out each year
since the 2002 Bali bombings, has been weakened by intense police pressure and
internal divisions.
The bad news is that Indonesia's most wanted man, the leader of JI's pro-bombing
faction, Noordin Mohammed Top, remains on the loose and has forged new alliances
with networks of extremists across the Indonesian archipelago.
And according to experts, the setbacks he has faced and the diverse networks he's
now using have complicated the counter-terrorism fight and possibly given him extra
motivation to strike again this year.
In the years since the first Bali bombings, in October 2002, all the major attacks on
largely Western targets in Indonesia — in 2003, 2004 and 2005 — have taken place
between August and October. That pattern has analysts worried that JI, or a new
splinter group led by Noordin, will strike again.
"Recent annual attacks have created a pattern that causes obvious concern and, it
must be assumed, some pressure on the perpetrators to maintain the rhythmic tempo
of their attacks," says Christian Le Miere of the British-based Jane's defence and
security information group.
Arrested JI members have revealed JI's leadership is "increasingly anxious to
perpetrate a major attack to maintain its momentum and to restore the flagging
morale of its members," said Neil Fergus of Intelligent Risks, a security and risk
consultancy.
Experts see no symbolism in JI's pattern of annual attacks. Rather, the timing is
dictated by the bombers' own operational needs: the time it takes to pick targets,
build bombs and recruit and train bombers, while at the same time avoiding
surveillance.
Attacks are occurring "when they're in a position to strike," said a source with
knowledge of JI's operations. "We don't put any credence on a particular set of dates,"
the source says. "We think an attack can occur at any time."
The Federal Government continues to warn Australians against travelling to Indonesia
because of "the very high threat of terrorist attack". Its official advisory refers to "a
stream of reporting indicating terrorists are in the advanced stages of planning attacks
against Western interests in Indonesia".
The threat of another attack comes despite the successes of Indonesian police,
backed by Australian training and technical expertise, particularly in tracing mobile
phone calls. The death of Noordin's key accomplice and bomb-maker, Azahari Husin,
and the arrest of fellow travellers in a police raid in East Java last November, was a
major breakthrough. Then in April this year, police killed two members of Noordin's
inner circle and captured two others in Wonosobo, Central Java.
Last week Indonesian police were reported to be combing villages in East Java for
extremists, believed to include the Malaysian-born Noordin.
But even as police close in, the arrest of Noordin will still leave his support structure in
place, says Sidney Jones, an expert on JI with the International Crisis Group. In a
report in May, Ms Jones warned that Noordin had set up a "deviant splinter" group
from JI that he called "al-Qaeda for the Malay Archipelago".
This group draws on networks of extreme Islamists, many of whom have experience in
the sectarian conflicts in Poso and Ambon, in eastern Indonesia. These networks
would survive as a potential source of recruits for future attacks, even if Noordin was
captured or killed. Despite media portrayals of JI as monolithic, it lacks clear
leadership and has been torn by internal divisions over the ethics of attacks causing
mass casualties, most of them not Westerners but Indonesian Muslims.
Traditional JI leaders, including their spiritual head Abu Bakar Bashir, want to
transform the group into a formal Islamic community organisation, with the long-term
aim of creating an Islamic state in Indonesia.
Ms Jones told a seminar in Singapore last month that JI was now in disarray, through
the mass arrests of members, a weakening support base and a popular backlash
against the bombings.
She said the terrorist threat in Indonesia was probably declining, while the notion of JI
as an affiliate of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda group was "anachronistic and
inaccurate".
But even if the threat from JI is declining, other risks remain. The new danger,
according to Ms Jones, is that JI's ostracised pro-bomb faction will use new networks
forged in the Poso and Ambon conflicts, "to conduct operations that are increasingly
outside the control and command structure of JI".
The question now is how to counter those groups, she said, "because all of those
guys are seriously dangerous".
Other experts question whether the evolving tactics being adopted by the bombers
mean a lessening of the threat. Asked if JI was still capable of launching major
attacks, security consultant Neil Fergus is emphatic: "Yes. The question is not if. The
issues are when will the next one occur and where."
Pattern of terror
*October 2, 2005 Suicide bombers set off three blasts in Bali, which kill 23 people,
including the three bombers. Four Australians among the dead.
*September 9, 2004 A bomb outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta kills 10
Indonesians.
*August 5, 2003 A bomb outside the J. W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta kills 12, wounds
150.
*October 12, 2002 Blasts in Bali kill 202 people, including 88 Australians. Source:
Reuters
Copyright © 2006. The Age Company Ltd.
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