The International Crisis Group (ICG), 5 May 2006
Terrorism in Indonesia: Noordin's Networks
Asia Report N°114
5 May 2006
Executive Summary
The Indonesian police are closing in on Noordin Mohammed Top, South East Asia's
most wanted terrorist. In a dramatic pre-dawn raid on 29 April 2006 in Wonosobo,
Central Java, they shot and killed two members of his inner circle and arrested two
others. If and when they capture Noordin, they will have put the person most
determined to attack Western targets out of commission. But the problem of
Noordin's support structure will still have to be tackled.
For four years Noordin has tapped into jihadist networks to build a following of diehard
loyalists, and those same networks may be available to others. Jemaah Islamiyah
(JI), the region's largest jihadist organisation, continues to provide the hard core of that
following: the two killed in the Wonosobo raid were longstanding JI members, as was
at least one of those arrested. But beginning in 2004, Noordin began reaching out to
young men from other organisations and some with no previous organisational
affiliation.
Many JI members reportedly see the group he has cobbled together – he grandly
calls it al-Qaeda for the Malay Archipelago – as a deviant splinter that has done great
harm to the organisation they joined in the mid-1990s. Noordin, however, reportedly
sees himself as leading JI's military wing, even though he answers to no one. He
justifies his actions by citing jihadist doctrine that under emergency conditions – for
example if surrounded by the enemy – a group of two or three or even a single
individual can take on the enemy without instructions from an imam.
This report examines the way in which Noordin has relied on personal contacts to put
his group together. It is based on interrogation depositions, court documents, and
Indonesian press reports, with information crosschecked through extensive interviews
with knowledgeable sources, both official and unofficial.
For the Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta in August 2003, he used a small circle of
Sumatra-based JI members who had either been associated with a JI school in
Malaysia, Lukman al-Hakiem, or with its prototype, the al-Mukmin Islamic boarding
school in Ngruki, near Solo, Central Java.
For the Australian embassy bombing in September 2004, he relied on three networks:
the East Java division of JI; alumni of JI schools in Central Java; and a West
Java-based faction of an old insurgency, Darul Islam, whose members supplied the
key operatives. While individuals from that Ring Banten faction had worked with JI
before, military operations had never before been outsourced in this way. It was one
indication that Noordin was working on his own.
After the embassy bombing, Noordin was short of funds, weapons and experienced
fighters. He turned to two men who had access to all these, neither of whom was JI.
One was from a different Darul Islam faction with long experience in the Philippines;
the other had been head of the Ambon office of the Islamic charity KOMPAK and
could mobilise veterans of Indonesian communal conflicts. Intense negotiations
followed with couriers used to relay messages between the bosses. It turned out that
neither the Darul Islam nor the KOMPAK leader was interested in joining forces but
both were arrested in mid-2005 and began to lose control over their followers, some of
whom went over to Noordin.
For the second Bali bombing in October 2005, Noordin relied on his inner circle,
including the two who were killed on 29 April, to find and train new members.
Recruitment appeared to be rather ad hoc, despite written materials attributed to
Noordin suggesting a tightly organised cell structure designed to undertake military
operations.
Noordin has shown remarkable determination and capacity to plan operations even as
he loses his closest colleagues to police dragnets and remains the target of
Indonesia's biggest ever manhunt. It is not clear who among potential successors
could do as well.
But his behaviour following Bali II suggests he is running short of money and
experienced cadres. The loss on 29 April of the men who served as both couriers and
recruiters has to be a significant blow. The Wonosobo raid was a triumph for the
police, and Noordin's arrest will be an even greater one. But the networks he drew on
will survive as a potential source of recruits for future operations.
Jakarta/Brussels, 5 May 2006
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