Asia Times, Mar 14, 2007
New terrorism front opens in Indonesia
By Bill Guerin
JAKARTA - Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has won high marks
from both the United States and Australia for his government's efforts to combat
terrorism, including the recent capture or elimination of at least 200 terror suspects.
But a new front may be opening in strife-torn Sulawesi.
Security analysts have noted that since the elite counter-terrorism Detachment 88,
supplied and trained by the US and Australia, ramped up its counter-terrorism
operations, there have over the past 18 months conspicuously been no new major
terrorist attacks against local or Western targets.
Now, however, a dangerous new front is opening in the Poso area of Central Sulawesi
province that threatens to spiral into a new regional security hot spot and raises new
questions about the effectiveness of Indonesia's anti-terrorism operations.
Fear, loathing and violence are not new to religiously divided Poso. An estimated
2,000 people were killed in communal fighting between Muslims and Christians in the
area until an accord was brokered by the central government in 2002. That deal never
fully took hold and the Jemaah Islamiyah terror group has recently exploited the
tensions for its own ideological ends. Several JI operatives have allegedly gathered in
the coastal Poso region to regroup, recruit, and perhaps even plan new attacks
across the archipelago.
Indonesia's anti-terrorism chief, retired General Ansyaad Mbai, and General A M
Hendropriyono, former State Intelligence Agency (BIN) chief, have both said in recent
interviews that the renewed violence in Poso is the work of JI-inspired terrorists.
Authorities say they are trying to link local players involved in the region's recent
violence to the wider JI network.
JI operatives have reportedly recently landed in Poso from former sanctuaries in the
southern Philippines, where they were once welcomed by the rebel Moro Islamic
Liberation Front, but have more recently been flushed out by US-backed
counter-terrorism sweeps by the Philippine armed forces. Indonesian authorities have
encountered heavily armed fighters during their recent Poso operations and claim to
have uncovered large weapons caches during raids, which they contend originated
from the southern Philippines.
Regional intelligence officials have long claimed that JI ran a guerrilla training camp at
Abubakar, a remote jungle-covered area on the Philippines' southern island of
Mindanao. If indeed JI is now regrouping in Poso, as Indonesian authorities contend, it
marks a worrisome new development. JI was responsible for the 2002 Bali bomb
attacks, which killed more than 200 people, including 88 Australians, as well as the
bombings in 2005 of the J W Marriott Hotel and the Australian Embassy in Jakarta.
According to Western and regional intelligence officials, JI's motivating ambition is to
create a regional Muslim caliphate encompassing territories in Indonesia, Malaysia,
Singapore, Thailand, Australia and the Philippines. The group reportedly has four main
operational divisions scattered across the region: Mantiqi I, which covers peninsular
Malaysia and Singapore; Mantiqi II, based in Central Java, which covers Java,
Sumatra, and most of eastern Indonesia; Mantiqi III, which encompasses Sabah, East
Kalimantan and Sulawesi; and Mantiqi IV, which includes territories in Papua and
Australia.
Through mainly covert operations, Indonesian counter-terrorism forces, with US and
Australian support, are now aggressively aiming to defuse that plan by intensifying
their activities in Central and East Java. For instance, Detachment 88 tracked down
and killed in East Java bomb maker Azahari bin Hussin, a Malaysian who reportedly
played a pivotal role in both the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings. In late January,
Detachment 88 raided the houses of alleged Muslim militants in Poso, where several
suspects were detained and at least 16 killed, including Ustadz Mahmud and Ustadz
Riansyah, both considered senior JI members.
Two days after the crackdown, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group released
a report suggesting that militants based in Poso might extend their violent operations
beyond Central Sulawesi province and aim for targets on the main island of Java. The
report also raised the possibility that certain leading militants have already crossed
into Java to link up with JI operational leader Noordin Mohammed Top, currently the
most wanted terrorist in the region, who is believed to be holed up somewhere in Java.
Australia, Thailand and the Philippines have all since issued advisories warning their
citizens against travel not just to Sulawesi but to Indonesia as a whole, citing
unconfirmed intelligence reports that Indonesia-based terrorists were in the advanced
stages of planning new attacks. There are concerns among certain security analysts
that JI might attempt to stir violence in Poso on par with the shadowy and
destabilizing insurgent operations now seen in southern Thailand.
The government's operations in Poso are galvanizing known Islamic radicals.
Firebrand Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, who was convicted (but soon thereafter
released) on conspiracy charges related to his role in the 2002 Bali bombings, and
who has been tagged by both Australia and the US as one of the region's most
dangerous terrorists, has called on all Muslims to stop serving in the government's
counter-terrorism forces in Poso. Ba'asyir has consistently denied the charges
against him and has frequently denied that JI even exists.
Still, he has recently called his followers to violent action. "If necessary, we must
organize a jihad," said Ba'asyir to a group of angry protesters who had gathered
outside the National Human Rights Commission to protest the government's handling
of the Poso raids. "If Muslims are being killed, then we must fight back," he added.
Counter-terrorism chief General Mbai has recently claimed publicly that Ba'asyir
serves as a mentor for many JI militants in Poso.
According to intelligence sources, Ba'asyir's followers in Solo several years ago set
recruitment activities and training camps in firearms near Poso. Among those alleged
JI recruits was Hasanuddin, who experienced fighting in the southern Philippines,
moved to Poso in September 2002 and later became the reputed leader of Mantiqi III.
He has been implicated in several acts of communal violence and was finally arrested
last May for the gruesome crime of beheading three Christian schoolgirls. During
interrogation, he has allegedly provided the names of several other JI operatives in the
region that Detachment 88 is now hunting.
Those operations, however, threaten to inflame the historically restive region into new
violence. Last month, Vice President Jusuf Kalla called a meeting of several influential
Islamic figures to discuss the conflict in Poso. So far these discussions have only
highlighted criticism of the government's handling of the situation, which the Islamic
leaders say is only serving to mobilize extremist sentiments and pave the way for
militant recruitment.
For instance, Tifatul Sembiring, chairman of the Muslim Prosperous Justice Party
(PKS), was quoted in the local press saying police should be more selective in
deciding on the targets of their security operations. Jafar Umar Thalib, a former radical
militant who once headed the now-disbanded Laskar Jihad group, was closely linked
to the fighting in Sulawesi in 2000 and 2001.
He recently met with Kalla and thereafter told Adnkronos International in an interview
that although JI in Central Sulawesi would likely be defeated by the army within the
next six months, "holy war" could spread to other parts of Indonesia. Whether Thalib
was privy to inside information from Poso cells is unclear, but his predictions sent a
chilling warning.
As Indonesia girds itself for a potential full-blown insurgency in Poso, the US has
offered Jakarta an unprecedented helping hand in its counter-terrorism operations.
Police chief General Sutanto recently confirmed that US authorities have agreed to
allow Jakarta access to Indonesia-born terror suspect Riduan Isamuddin, or Hambali,
whom the US captured in Thailand in August 2003.
According to Western and regional intelligence agencies, Hambali is the mastermind
behind the 2002 Bali bombings and JI's alleged point man with al-Qaeda. Until
recently the US held Hambali at one of the Central Intelligence Agency's secret
prisons, and over the past three years had denied Jakarta's requests to interrogate the
suspect in person. Earlier, the US would only permit Indonesia to submit questions to
be asked by US interrogators at the secret location.
Three and a half years since his arrest, Hambali's knowledge of JI's current plans is
probably minimal. And if the situation in Poso escalates, as many fear, Indonesian
authorities are going to need all the inside knowledge and outside help they can get.
Bill Guerin, a Jakarta correspondent for Asia Times Online since 2000, has been in
Indonesia for more than 20 years, mostly in journalism and editorial positions. He
specializes in Indonesian political, business and economic analysis, and hosts a
weekly television political talk show, Face to Face, broadcast on two Indonesia-based
satellite channels. He can be reached at softsell@prima.net.id.
Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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