Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesia marked an anniversary of sorts when New Year's Day rang in last week. For the second year running, the world's largest Muslim-majority nation did not suffer a terrorist attack by Islamic militants.
Indonesia clearly has come a long way since October 2002, when Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the South-east Asian region terrorist group, bombed two nightclubs on the resort island of Bali, killing 202 people, mainly foreign tourists.
At that time, the Indonesian government was in complete denial about the existence of homegrown terrorist networks such as JI, which has personal and financial links to al-Qaeda.
Jakarta's denial was serious, especially as there had been repeated warnings from the US government and Indonesia's own spy agency about the presence of remote training camps and clandestine visits by foreign jihadists from South Asia and the Middle East.
The Bali attacks jarred the Indonesians back to reality, and since then - and despite a second deadly bombing on Bali and two more in Jakarta - the country arguably has the world's best record in fighting terrorism.
Today, the three masterminds of the Bali attack, Ali Ghufron, Imam Samudra and Amrozi, sit on death row and are likely to be executed in early February.
"It took the Bali bombing to prompt serious police and law enforcement attention and the second Bali bombings (in October 2005) to get the attention of the government," said Sidney Jones, a JI expert and regional director of the International Crisis Group in Jakarta.
Indonesia's numbers speak for themselves. Around 400 JI militants have been captured since Bali I and 70 have been convicted. A senior JI bomb maker, Malaysian Azhari bin Husin, was killed in a shootout in 2005, and Ghufron, Samudra and Amrozi, who is Ghufron's younger brother, will soon face a firing squad.
In June 2007, police captured JI's top civilian and military leaders, delivering a body blow that still stings the terrorists. The network used to have territorial commands for all of Southeast Asia and Australia, but has been decimated to just four cells on Java and in Central Sulawesi province.
"JI is really a shell of its former self," said Ken Conboy, a JI expert and author of the book The Second Front: Inside Asia's Most Dangerous Terrorist Network.
"They've gotten flak from overseas but there's been a lot of success," he told Deutsche Presse Agentur DPA.
That flak was mainly for Indonesia's slow start in joining the US-led war on terror, but also because some of their methods raised eyebrows in the West.
The Velvet glove
While there are two top notch counter-terrorism police units acting as the fist, Indonesian officials have also used the velvet glove with terrorists - and with good results.
JI terrorist suspects who cooperate are given special treatment in custody, including money for their wives and children, and the use of cell phones to call their families.
The goal is to make them more willing to talk and to "re-educate" them about Islam. Physical and mental coercion, such as shouting at or beating detainees, or depriving them of sleep, are strictly forbidden, officials said.
"I don't want to compare this to Abu Ghraib," Ansyaad Mbai, head of the government's counter-terrorism coordinating body, said after the re-education programme became public last year, "but the police are aware if they use physical force on the terrorists, they will become more militant, and the police will not get information as they do when they treat them humanely."
He noted that JI suspects arrested in January and March of 2007 shared information that led police directly to the hideouts of Zarkasih, JI's overall leader, and Abu Dujana, one of its senior military commanders, who were captured last June.
Standing quietly in the background are the US, Britain and Australia, which provided money, high-tech surveillance equipment, training schools, and forensic and DNA testing facilities for the Indonesians.
Indonesia's 190 million Muslims are mainstream and over all abhor terrorism and suicide bombings. But they also overwhelmingly dislike the Bush administration's foreign policies, so the Indonesian government could not be seen as being ordered around by the West.
There is virtually no sympathy for Ghufron, Samudra and Amrozi, who in an exclusive interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa this week remained unrepentant and called on Indonesian Muslims to join the jihad onto which only they still cling.
"They're trying to preach to their choir, but they haven't drawn too many new adherents," Conboy said. "These guys talk tough and are willing to go down as martyrs, but they've tried to exploit every (legal) loophole in the book to extend their execution."
The Bali bombers will soon meet their fate, but analysts fear that JI will once again rebuild itself if the government is complacent. "I don't think the police feel the threat is over but elements of the government do," Jones said. (*)
Copyright © 2008 ANTARA
Indonesia clearly has come a long way since October 2002, when Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the South-east Asian region terrorist group, bombed two nightclubs on the resort island of Bali, killing 202 people, mainly foreign tourists.
At that time, the Indonesian government was in complete denial about the existence of homegrown terrorist networks such as JI, which has personal and financial links to al-Qaeda.
Jakarta's denial was serious, especially as there had been repeated warnings from the US government and Indonesia's own spy agency about the presence of remote training camps and clandestine visits by foreign jihadists from South Asia and the Middle East.
The Bali attacks jarred the Indonesians back to reality, and since then - and despite a second deadly bombing on Bali and two more in Jakarta - the country arguably has the world's best record in fighting terrorism.
Today, the three masterminds of the Bali attack, Ali Ghufron, Imam Samudra and Amrozi, sit on death row and are likely to be executed in early February.
"It took the Bali bombing to prompt serious police and law enforcement attention and the second Bali bombings (in October 2005) to get the attention of the government," said Sidney Jones, a JI expert and regional director of the International Crisis Group in Jakarta.
Indonesia's numbers speak for themselves. Around 400 JI militants have been captured since Bali I and 70 have been convicted. A senior JI bomb maker, Malaysian Azhari bin Husin, was killed in a shootout in 2005, and Ghufron, Samudra and Amrozi, who is Ghufron's younger brother, will soon face a firing squad.
In June 2007, police captured JI's top civilian and military leaders, delivering a body blow that still stings the terrorists. The network used to have territorial commands for all of Southeast Asia and Australia, but has been decimated to just four cells on Java and in Central Sulawesi province.
"JI is really a shell of its former self," said Ken Conboy, a JI expert and author of the book The Second Front: Inside Asia's Most Dangerous Terrorist Network.
"They've gotten flak from overseas but there's been a lot of success," he told Deutsche Presse Agentur DPA.
That flak was mainly for Indonesia's slow start in joining the US-led war on terror, but also because some of their methods raised eyebrows in the West.
The Velvet glove
While there are two top notch counter-terrorism police units acting as the fist, Indonesian officials have also used the velvet glove with terrorists - and with good results.
JI terrorist suspects who cooperate are given special treatment in custody, including money for their wives and children, and the use of cell phones to call their families.
The goal is to make them more willing to talk and to "re-educate" them about Islam. Physical and mental coercion, such as shouting at or beating detainees, or depriving them of sleep, are strictly forbidden, officials said.
"I don't want to compare this to Abu Ghraib," Ansyaad Mbai, head of the government's counter-terrorism coordinating body, said after the re-education programme became public last year, "but the police are aware if they use physical force on the terrorists, they will become more militant, and the police will not get information as they do when they treat them humanely."
He noted that JI suspects arrested in January and March of 2007 shared information that led police directly to the hideouts of Zarkasih, JI's overall leader, and Abu Dujana, one of its senior military commanders, who were captured last June.
Standing quietly in the background are the US, Britain and Australia, which provided money, high-tech surveillance equipment, training schools, and forensic and DNA testing facilities for the Indonesians.
Indonesia's 190 million Muslims are mainstream and over all abhor terrorism and suicide bombings. But they also overwhelmingly dislike the Bush administration's foreign policies, so the Indonesian government could not be seen as being ordered around by the West.
There is virtually no sympathy for Ghufron, Samudra and Amrozi, who in an exclusive interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa this week remained unrepentant and called on Indonesian Muslims to join the jihad onto which only they still cling.
"They're trying to preach to their choir, but they haven't drawn too many new adherents," Conboy said. "These guys talk tough and are willing to go down as martyrs, but they've tried to exploit every (legal) loophole in the book to extend their execution."
The Bali bombers will soon meet their fate, but analysts fear that JI will once again rebuild itself if the government is complacent. "I don't think the police feel the threat is over but elements of the government do," Jones said. (*)
Copyright © 2008 ANTARA
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