Asia Times, Nov 3, 2004
Ba'asyir trial and the future of the Jemaah Islamiah
By Eric Koo
Last Thursday Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir was brought to trial in an Indonesian
court. Ba'asyir, the alleged spiritual leader of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) group, is being
charged with inciting terror attacks on the state, including the Bali bombing on
October 12, 2002, and the Marriott Hotel bombing on August 5, 2003. Ba'asyir's trial
is not only of interest to the intelligence and security community, but to the public as
well. The JI group, which Ba'asyir allegedly heads, was once and still is, a menace to
public security in the nations of Southeast Asia.
The rise of the JI
Jemaah Islamiah, which means Islamic community, is a group that arose in Indonesia
from humble beginnings. In 1971 two Islamic preachers, Abu Bakar Ba'asyir and
Abdullah Sungkar (who died in 1999 of natural causes), co-founded the al-Mukmin
Koranic Studies boarding school in Ngruki village east of Surakarta, Solo province.
Both men aspired to the ideology of Darul Islam, which advocates establishing an
Islamic state ruled by sharia, or Islamic law, in Java as its ultimate goal, and started
teaching and spreading such ideas among the students who came to study at the
school.
Then-ruling Indonesian president Suharto ordered a ban on the movement, arresting
both men. Ba'asyir and Abdullah were imprisoned from 1978 to 1982, for trying to start
an Islamic militia, Komando Jihad. Soon after their release, they fled to Malaysia in
1985 to escape another prison term and returned to Indonesia only after president
Suharto stepped down in 1998. While in Malaysia, the two men gathered like-minded
Muslim followers from neighboring states who shared their vision for a regional Islamic
state and formed the JI. One of these men was Riduan Isamuddin, better known as
Hambali, who later became the JI operations chief. Hambali, an Indonesian, went to
Afghanistan in the 1980s and supposedly fought the Soviets as a mujahideen, or
Islamic fighter. During that time he became associated with Osama bin Laden, leader
of the al-Qaeda network.
The JI gained prominence in Indonesia in the period 1999-2001, after the fall of
president Suharto in 1998, when a number of violent incidents occurred between
religious and ethnic groups amid the social chaos in the absence of a strong and
stable government.
At that time, Ba'asyir was a well-known figure and respected among the Indonesian
Muslim community. His friendship with then-Indonesian vice president Hamzah Haz
was also well known; hence the Indonesian government did not move against him until
after the Bali bombing incident.
A White Paper released by the Ministry of Home Affairs in Singapore on the Jemaah
Islamiah arrests in January 2003 described clearly that the JI were organized at the
local level into fiah or cells, which consisted of members who lead normal lives as
covers for their secret identities until called upon by the organization to act. The White
Paper also illustrated in detail the interlinked relationships between the JI and other
Islamic militant groups such as the Kumpulan Militan Malaysia (Malaysian Militant
Group, or KMM), the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) based in the southern
Philippines, and al-Qaeda.
If Ba'asyir was the spiritual leader and ideologue of the JI, Hambali was the planner
and organizer for bomb operations that propelled the group to regional and later, world
attention. He was also known to have held leadership positions in both the JI and
al-Qaeda sharia councils, the highest decision-making body in the groups. Hambali
was once regarded as being even more dangerous than Ba'asyir. He was finally
arrested in Thailand in August 2003 and is now in US custody. His arrest has since
led to even more vital information on links between the JI network and al-Qaeda.
Why the JI stays a threat
Since 1998, the JI had been active in Indonesia, covertly striking religious, political or
economic symbols of popular discontent from Indonesia's Muslim majority, including
churches, shopping malls, or the Philippine ambassador's residence.
Later, after the attacks on September 11, 2001, it was discovered that the JI had
secretly built up an alarmingly huge clandestine network and was in collaboration with
the global terrorist network, al-Qaeda.
The JI was discovered to have branches, or mantiqis, in Indonesia, Malaysia,
Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia and Australia. These countries have
openly outlawed this group and JI members, suspects or known associates had been
arrested periodically through police investigations or shared intelligence. Training
camps that had been discovered in Indonesia, the Philippines and Australia were also
neutralized.
Thus far, the JI has been directly responsible for at least 257 deaths through bomb
attacks, a modest figure compared to other insurgent or terrorist groups in Southeast
Asia, or the rest of the world for that matter. Certainly, other regional groups such as
the Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines or Hamas have killed many more people than that.
However, many JI plans were disrupted by timely crackdowns and arrests by various
Southeast Asian state governments, which accounts for its low attack frequency and
success rate.
The Bali bombing, which claimed 202 victims, remains its most intense and serious
assault on the Indonesian state thus far. The dormant threat JI poses to the region
lies in the depth of its infiltration into Southeast Asian societies, its organization of
secretive cells modeled on al-Qaeda and its known links to this much larger and
feared Islamic group.
The JI's last successful bomb attack was on September 9 this year when a vehicle
driven by a suicide bomber blew up in front of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta,
killing 11 and wounding 180. The suspected perpetrators, Malaysian JI member
Azahari bin Husin and other new key figures in the JI network such as Noordin
Mohammed Top and Zulkarnaen, are still on the loose. Security officials speculate
that it's possible that Azahari and his followers are breaking off from the JI network to
go their own way as smaller, splinter groups. If so, they would be even harder for the
security community to track.
Will Ba'asyir go free?
The Bali bombing radically changed Indonesia's state strategy against Islamic
militancy. Time magazine reported that then-president Megawati Sukarnoputri acted
with uncharacteristic decisiveness and passed an anti-terrorism presidential decree
giving special powers to the police to fight terrorism. Six days later, Abu Bakar
Ba'asyir, was arrested. The culprits involved in the Bali bombing operation were also
arrested over the subsequent months. Other suspected militants involved in less
well-known bombing incidents - for example, an attack on a McDonald's restaurant in
Makassar, South Sulawesi, on December 5, 2002 - were also rounded up. Secret
training camps allegedly used by the JI for explosives and other types of training were
also destroyed when discovered.
Whether Ba'asyir will go free depends principally on how the Indonesian court handles
his case - as a legal case involving violent crime, or as an anti-government terrorist
activity. Indonesia's unique handling of terrorism cases is heavily influenced by legal
procedures and precedents. For example, the Bali bombings' key suspects, Imam
Samudra, Amrozi and Mukhlas, were sentenced to death for direct participation in the
bomb plot. But Ba'asyir, who inspired others to commit terrorist acts through his
militant and extremist teachings, initially received only a four-year sentence on
charges of plotting treason.
These facts are well documented and cannot be disputed. Ba'asyir's lawyers, no
doubt, have capitalized on the legal aspect of Indonesia's criminal code by pointing
out that Ba'asyir, though linked and known to the JI militants and convicted terrorists,
nevertheless, was not directly involved in either the planning or execution phases of
the bomb attacks.
They also cite Ba'asyir's role in stepping forth to give a public statement demanding
that Iraqi kidnappers release Indonesian women kidnapped in Iraq last month,
ostensibly for the purpose of demanding Ba'asyir's release from prison. For whatever
reasons, the kidnappers released the two Indonesian women three days later.
Ba'asyir's role in diffusing the Iraqi kidnapping incident will no doubt be considered in
his favor when the Indonesian court reviews his legal case of appeal.
Still, terrorism experts and politicians generally agree that radical teachings are much
more dangerous than the operational aspects of terrorism. This could work against
Ba'asyir. For example, Singapore's minister mentor Lee Kuan Yew likened Ba'asyir to
that of a queen bee, but said Amrozi and others were just worker bees. Singapore's
Home Minister Wong Kan Seng also pointed out that Ba'asyir's Al-Mukmin religious
school was still in operation.
The affect on US-Indonesia relations
The United States has previously applied diplomatic pressure to coax the Indonesian
government toward more efficient and effective action against terrorism and Islamic
radicalism within Indonesia. That the JI's key leaders are mostly Indonesian by
nationality, and that nearly all the group's successful bomb attacks occurred within
that country, certainly cannot be denied.
The Indonesian government naturally is the best entity to deal with the JI problem.
Nevertheless, legal proceedings aside, Indonesia's security forces have contributed
the lion's share to breaking up the JI network, arresting its members and associates,
destroying its infrastructure such as training camps, and confiscating its weapon
cache.
But greater events are in motion that may overshadow Ba'asyir's trial. President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was sworn in recently as Indonesia's sixth president and
has stated that his first 100 days in office will be committed to addressing security
issues. Based on the outcome of the US presidential elections, new opportunities to
build cooperation and better interstate relations would be presented for the taking, as
long as both US and Indonesian leaders remain open to diplomatic discourse and
committed to the campaign against terror and Islamic radicalism.
Conclusion
With the JI incapacitated, many of its high- and mid-level leaders, bomb operatives
and cell members arrested, dead or on the run, the JI's threat to regional security has
been reduced to containable levels. Still, security is a concern that should never be
taken lightly. The history of JI has shown that it has a capacity of resilience,
metamorphosing into other organizational forms, adopting other names, and forming
links with other groups, to suit the tides and times. Its radical goals, however,
remained consistent, and that is something to worry about.
Eric Koo is a freelance writer who holds a master of science degree in strategic
studies from the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies (IDSS).
Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved.
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