Thayer Terrorism Al Qaeda In Southeast Asia

Linkages Between Regional and International Terrorism

Paper to Workshop on Re-envisioning Asia-Pacific Security: A Regional-Global Nexus?

Carlyle A Thayer Professor of Politics School of Humanities and Social Sciences The University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy Canberra, A.C.T. 2614 [email protected]

Organised by Department of International Relations Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies The Australian National University Common Room, University House Canberra, A.C.T. 0200 August 2-3, 2006

2

3

Linkages Between Regional and International Terrorism  Carlyle A. Thayer 1 For purposes of this assessment a terrorist organization and its leadership is defined as those groups and individuals that have been proscribed by the international community through the United Nations and are currently active in Southeast Asia. There are three groups in this category: al Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG). This analysis provides an historical overview of Al Qaeda’s emergence as a global jihadist network, it then reviews Al Qaeda’s links with Southeast Asia before turning to the region’s premier terrorist group, Jemah Islamiyah and its leadership dynamics. This analysis concludes with a net assessment of political terrorism in Southeast Asia in 2005.

Al Qaeda and Global Jihad Ever since the events of September 11, 2001 (9-11), international terrorism experts and regional security analysts have analyzed the activities of local militant Muslim organizations in Southeast Asia through what might be termed an al Qaeda-centric paradigm. There are three key methodological problems in discussing the role of al Qaeda in Southeast Asia in this manner. The first is how to characterize al Qaeda as an organization. The second problem is how to account for change over time. The third problem is how to assess the question of agency in al Qaeda’s relationship with militant Muslim groups in Southeast Asia.

1Professor

of Politics and Director of The University of New South Wales Defence Studies Forum, Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra. In 2005, he was the C. V. Starr Distinguished Visiting Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, D.C. In 2008, he will take up the inaugural Margaret and Stephen Fuller Visiting Professor at the Center of Southeast Asian Studies, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio. 

4 International terrorism experts and regional security analysts differ in their characterization of al Qaeda as an organization. Jason Burke has written what may be considered one of the best analysis of al Qaeda and a powerful critique of the al Qaeda-centric paradigm. Burke dismisses the notion that al Qaeda was “a coherent and tight-knit organization, with ‘tentacles everywhere’, with a defined ideology and personnel, that had emerged as early as the late 1980s” (2003 12). Burke argues that to accept such a view “is to misunderstand not only its true nature but also the nature of Islamic radicalism then and now. The contingent, dynamic and local elements of what is a broad and ill-defined movement rooted in historical trends of great complexity are lost” (2003 12). According to Burke, al Qaeda, as it is popularly conceived, “consisted of three elements. This tripartite division is essential to understanding the nature of both the ‘al-Qaeda’ phenomenon and of modern Islamic militancy” (2003 13). The first of these elements composed the “al Qaeda hardcore,” numbering around one hundred active “pre-eminent militants,” including a dozen close long-term associates of Osama bin Laden, many of whom had sworn an oath of loyalty to him. The inner core was comprised of veterans of the Afghan war or veterans of the conflicts in Bosnia or Chechnya. They acted as trainers and administrators in Afghanistan and on occasion were sent overseas to recruit, act as emissaries or, more rarely, to conduct specific terrorist operations. But, Burke cautions, “it is a mistake to see even this hardcore as monolithic in any way” (2003 13). The second element comprises the scores of other militant Islamic groups operating around the world. But, injecting another note of caution, Burke concludes “a careful examination of the situation shows that the idea that there is an international network of active groups answering to bin Laden is wrong.” To label groups included in this second element as al Qaeda is “to denigrate the particular local factors that led to their emergence” (2003 14). According to Burke “though they may see bin Laden as a heroic figure, symbolic of their collective

5 struggle, individuals and groups have their own leaders and their own agenda, often ones that are deeply parochial and which they will not subordinate to those of bin Laden or his close associates. Until very recently many were deeply antipathetic to bin Laden. As many remain rivals of bin Laden as have become allies (2003 14). Burke’s third element comprising al Qaeda consists of those individuals who subscribe to “the idea, worldview, ideology of ‘al-Qaeda’” in other words, “the vast, amorphous movement of modern radical Islam, with its myriad cells, domestic groups, ‘groupuscules’ and splinters…” (2003 16 and 207). In October 2004, for example, a key leader of the Iraqi insurgency, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, pledged his network’s allegiance to bin Landen and al Qaeda. U.S. Intelligence analysts who have studied the flow of communications between bin Laden and Zarqawi concluded both “are still independent operators rather than activists who have fully combined their efforts”(Pincus 2005 15). The cases of Indonesia’s Laskar Jihad and Free Aceh Movement are instructive. Both groups received and held discussions with al Qaeda representatives and both rejected offers of support in order to retain their operational autonomy. Burke concludes that the popular view of al Qaeda as comprising the three major elements discussed above is misguided. In Burke’s view it is the hardcore alone that comprises al Qaeda (2003 207). The second methodological problem in discussing al Qaeda’s role in Southeast Asia is how to account for change over time. International and regional terrorism experts adopt an approach that can be characterized as “back to the future.” In other words, their analysis of al Qaeda’s operations in Southeast Asia in the late 1980s and 1990s begins with the events of September 11, 2001 and works backwards in an ahistorical manner. Al Qaeda is portrayed as a purposive organization, endowed with virtually unlimited resources, from the very start. It is as if Osama bin Laden’s announcement of the formation of the World Islamic

6 Front declaring jihad against “Jews and Crusaders” was made in 1988 not 1998. Burke correctly argues that al Qaeda as an organization was limited in time and space: Something that can be labeled ‘al-Qaeda’ did exist between 1996 and 2001. It was composed of a small number of experienced militants who were able to access resources of a scale and with an ease that was hitherto unknown in Islamic militancy, largely by virtue of their position in Afghanistan and the sympathy of so many wealthy, and not so wealthy, Muslims across the Islamic world, though particularly in the Gulf (2003 208). Burke’s view is echoed by the U.S. The 9/11 Commission (2005 59), which concluded in its final report: In now analyzing the terrorist programs carried out by members of this network, it would be misleading to apply the label ‘al Qaeda operations’ too often in these early years [1992-96]. Yet it would be misleading to ignore the significance of these connections. And in this network, Bin Laden’s agenda stood out. Bin Laden spent the crucial years from 1991 to 1996 in the Sudan. During his stay he maintained training camps and guesthouses in Pakistan and Afghanistan. These formed part of a larger network used by a diversity of extremist groups for recruiting and training jihadis. Bin Laden also managed a complex structure of global business operations and enterprises that funded terrorist activities. Increasingly, however, bin Laden began to encounter serious money problems as several of his companies went bankrupt. Bin Laden also wore out his welcome with the Sudanese government, which “canceled the registration of the main business enterprises he had set up” and “seized everything… [he] had possessed there” (quotations in this paragraph are from The 9/11 Commission 2005 62-65). According to an assessment by the 9/11

7 Commission, “Bin Laden was in his weakest position since his early days in the war against the Soviet Union.” When he left for Afghanistan in May 1996, he and his organization were “significantly weakened, despite his ambitions and organizational skills.” It should be noted that bin Laden’s decision to leave the Sudan for Afghanistan and shift his main objective from the “near enemy” to the “far enemy” provoked grave dissension within his ranks. Many of his supporters went off in their own directions. According to Marc Sageman (2004 45), bin Laden returned to Afghanistan with about 150 followers and “[m]any people stayed behind and left the jihad, which they believed was taking an uncomfortable turn. The return to Afghanistan was the occasion for another large purging of al Qaeda of its less militant elements, who hesitated to take on the United States, with whom they had no quarrel and no legitimate fatwa.” In other words, it was only after bin Laden returned to Afghanistan in May 1996 that al Qaeda emerged as an international jihadist terrorist organization in its own right. In August 1996, al Qaeda shifted its focus from the “near enemy” and defensive jihad to the “far enemy” by declaring “War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.” In sum, al Qaeda facilitated a global terrorist network through funding, services and facilities but did not control or direct local agents. As noted by Simon Reeve (1999 192), bin Laden was “a powerful figure funding many Islamic militants, but his level of day-today control over al Qaeda must be questioned.”

Al Qaeda and Southeast Asia Muslim militants from Southeast Asia flocked to Pakistan to join the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan beginning in 1980 or at least eight years before al Qaeda was founded and eighteen years before bin Laden launched his global jihad. It was during this early period that Southeast Asians forged personal links with leading

8 figures in the mujihaden. One particularly influential figure was Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a Pushtun warlord and leader of one of the four major mujihaden factions. It was under Sayyaf’s patronage that key future leaders of the ASG and JI were trained at his camp in Afghanistan. Sayyaf provided training facilities to the bulk of Southeast Asia’s Muslim militants. Increasingly Afghanistan became embroiled in a civil war as the Taliban initiated its drive to power. Because of this turmoil, in 1995 Southeast Asia’s militants decided to relocate their training camps to the southern Philippines. The al Qaeda-Southeast Asia relationship may be viewed as having passed through at least three distinct phases following the Afghan war. The first phase (1989-95) primarily involved the establishment of networks and provision of training facilities in Afghanistan under Abdul Rasul Sayyaf. During this period, while bin Laden was in exile in the Sudan, individual contacts were initiated between Southeast Asian leaders and personalities affiliated with al Qaeda. Equipment and training assistance was provided to the ASG, JI and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). During the second phase (1995-2001), the leaders of the MILF, ASG and the JI relocated to Southeast Asia. There was an intensification of links between them and the al Qaeda leadership. These links weakened when two key leaders, Abdullah Sungar (the founder of JI) and Abdulrajak Janjalani (founder of the ASG) both died in the late 1990s. The period after 2001 marks a third and distinctive phase. The U.S.-led attack on the Taliban regime and al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan in the final quarter of 2001, resulted in the death or capture of key al Qaeda leaders, and greatly degraded and disrupted al Qaeda’s international network. Al Qaeda members were forced to seek refuge in remote areas of eastern Afghanistan and in Pakistan’s North West Frontier. Other al Qaeda members dispersed overseas mainly to Yemen, Chechnya, and Iran (Stern 2003) but also to Southeast Asia.

9 The third methodological problem is how to assess the question of agency in al Qaeda’s relationship with Jemaah Islamiyah and other militant Muslim groups. International terrorism experts and regional security analysts are often ambiguous when they use the term “al Qaeda.” Who or what represented “al Qaeda” in its dealings with Southeast Asian militant groups in these formative years? These analysts fail to consider that several al Qaeda figures may have been acting at freelancers. Consider this assessment by the 9/11 Commission, “There were also rootless but experienced operatives, such as Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who – though not necessarily formal members of someone else’s organization – were traveling around the world and joining in projects that were supported by or linked to Bin Laden, the blind Sheikh, or their associates” (The 9/11 Commission 2005 59). With the decimation of al Qaeda in Afghanistan in late 2001, the initiative for political terrorism in Southeast Asia rested in the hands of indigenous leaders with some collaboration with al Qaeda remnants left stranded in the region. By 2003 most of the high-level al Qaeda leadership that had links with Southeast Asia, such as Omar Faruk, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and Riduan Isamuddin (Hambali) were captured.

Terrorist Leadership Dynamics in Southeast Asia Marc Sageman provides perhaps one of the most insightful accounts into why individuals become terrorists based on his study of the biographies of nearly 400 individuals who were members of the global jihad (2004 and 2005). 2 Most of Sageman’s sample came from three clusters, core Arab countries, immigrant communities in the West, and Southeast Asia (2005 80). Sageman considered three main explanatory approaches to the study of why individuals join terrorist

Sageman’s 2004 study considered the backgrounds of 172 international terrorists. This data set was expanded to about 400 in his 2005 study.

2

10 groups: social background, common psychological make up, and situational factors. Sageman evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. It is beyond the scope of this assessment to provide a full elaboration of Sageman’s theory of social networks as the key variable in explaining why individuals decided to join the global jihad. In summary, Sageman argues that joining the jihad was a three-pronged process of social affiliation (social bonding) involving membership in “small-world” groups based on friendship, kinship and discipleship. Over time members of these cliques experienced a progressive intensification of their beliefs and faith leading them to embrace the global jihadist ideology. The next stage involved an encounter by the small group with a link to the jihad. The final stage involved intense training and voluntary recruitment usually marked by a formal ceremony such as swearing an oath of loyalty. Sageman’s findings reject the arguments that individuals become terrorists because of top down recruitment and brainwashing. In his view, social bonds predating formal recruitment into the jihad are the crucial element of the process. Groups of friends that spontaneously assemble in mosques constitute the main venue for joining the jihad. Sageman’s two studies provide a parsimonious framework for the analysis of Southeast Asian leaders who joined the global jihad and the factors that account for their decision to do so Sageman’s original study included a sample of twenty-one individuals from Southeast Asia who were associated with JI. Indonesians formed the majority of this cluster (12 or 57%); other nationalities included Malaysia (3), Singapore and the Philippines (2 each), and Australia and Kuwait (1 each). Most of the members of JI were former students and/or staff at two boarding schools, Pondok Ngruki in Indonesia and Pesentren Luqmanul Hakiem in Malaysia, founded by the group’s leaders. The Southeast Asia cluster was formed in 1993 when the leaders

11 of JI were exiled in Malaysia. JI did not embark on terrorism until after its leaders returned to Indonesia in 1999. In terms of socio-economic status, the Southeast Asia cluster was classified by Sageman as solidly middle class. They generally came from relatively well-to-do families. In terms of education, they were much better educated than their parents and the general population. Nearly all of the Indonesian network were the product of Islamic boarding school and religious studies. A significant proportion of the Southeast Asian cluster had experience living abroad. Indonesian members of JI joined while living in Malaysia, for example. All of the Southeast Asian leaders in Sageman’s study were married. These individuals were encouraged by their social networks to wed their colleague’s sisters and daughters. According to Sageman, “[the] invitation to join the Indonesian Jemaah Islamiyah depends on the background of the spouse of the applicant” (2005 85). These in-group marriages forged close religious and political relationships and thus contributed to the security of the group (ICG 2003 27-29). The average on joining the Southeast Asian cluster was 29.35 years, the highest mean in Sageman’s global sample.

Jemaah Islamiyah As noted above, many international and regional terrorism specialists have adopted an “al Qaeda-centric paradigm” to study the emergence of terrorist groups. This approach “homogenizes” Southeast Asia’s very diverse and complex political landscape. Reports by the International Crisis Group and assessments by Western and Asian government analysts establish quite clearly that JI is “a stand-alone regional operation, with its own camps, recruiting, financing and agenda” autonomous from al Qaeda (Boner 2003). But these reports also make clear that up to half a dozen other autonomous extremist groups were also active. For example, of the roughly 270 suspects jailed in

12 Indonesia for terrorist activities after the October 2002 Bali bombings, only half were members of JI (Bonner 2005). Sageman’s analysis of the historical formation of four terrorist clusters repeatedly highlights how different the Southeast Asia cluster is from the other global clusters along two dimensions. First, the bonding of students to their religious mentors, Abdullah Sungkar and Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, was particularly noticeable. Sageman findings thus underscores the importance of discipleship in JI’s organization. Second, the Southeast Asia cluster is more hierarchical in leadership structure than the other clusters. JI’s founder, Abdullah Sungkar, intentionally created JI from above. In terms of social network theory, a terrorist organization may be viewed as a network composed of individuals in small groups (relatively isolated nodes) linked by hubs (well connected nodes). According to Sageman, a few highly connected hubs dominate the architecture of the global jihad. But in the case of Southeast Asia one hub dominated the cluster – the leadership group around Abdullah Sungkar (until his death in late 1999) and then Abu Bakar Ba’asyir. According to the General Guidelines for the Jemaah Islamiyah Struggle, JI is led by an amir (initially Abdullah Sungkar) who appoints and controls four councils: governing council, religious council, fatwa council, and disciplinary council. The governing council is headed by a central command that oversees the leaders of four territorial divisions or mantiqis. The mantiqi was in practice sub-divided into three levels (wakalah, kirdas and fiah), although organizational charts made provision for six sub-divisions. According to the International Crisis Group (2003 11 and 2004 2, note 4) the term mantiqi (literally region) is more appropriately viewed as a military structure with brigades (mantiqi), battalions (wakalah), companies (khatibah), platoons (qirdas) and squads (fiah).

13 In its ideal form, JI comprised four major divisions as follows: Mantiqi 1 – Singapore, peninsula Malaysia and southern Thailand Mantiqi 2 – Indonesia (except Sulawesi and Kalimantan) Mantiqi 3 – southern Philippines, Sulawesi, Kalimantan, eastern Malaysia and Brunei Mantiqi 4 – Australia and Papua When JI was first set up it was organized into two mantiqi. Mantiqi 1 had responsibility for Malaysia and Singapore and was assigned fund raising as its major objective. Mantiqi 2 covered Indonesia and was given the promotion of jihad at its prime mission. Mantiqi 3 was created in 1997 due to logistical and communication problems with existing arrangements. Mantiqi 4 was never established as a proper administrative or territorial unit. The ICG asserts “a mantiqi based in Australia was never a going concern” (2004 2). In sum, in organizational terms JI was a fairly traditional organization in contrast to the rest of the global jihad. After bin Laden issued his fatwas in 1996 and 1998, serious fissures developed within the JI leadership over the organization’s long-term goals and strategy. Broadly speaking, a group of JI militants formed around Abdullah Sungkar. These comprised his former students including Hambali, Imam Samudra and Ali Ghufron. After the collapse of President Suharto’s New Order in 1998, this group cited bin Laden’s fatwas as authority to wage violent jihad in Indonesia in order to create an Islamic state. When Abdullah Sungkar returned to Indonesia in 1999 he discovered that the leaders of Mantiqi 2 had an entirely different agenda. They wanted more resources and time to build up a mass support base through religious education and training. Leaders of Mantiqi 2 argued that there was no clear enemy in

14 Indonesia and that it would be a mistake to expend limited resources on prematurely launching a jihad. The majority faction within JI viewed “the fatwa’s implementation as inappropriate for Indonesia and damaging to the longer-term strategy of building a mass base through religious outreach” (2004 1). They argued for a strategy of building up a core of cadres and set a target date of 2025 for the establishment of an Islamic state in Indonesia (ICG 2004 3). Sungkar’s disciples were dissatisfied when Abu Bakar Ba’asyir became JI’s leader following Sungkar’s death in November 1999. They viewed Ba’asyir as too weak, and too accommodating. In 1999, Hambali issued instructions to activate operational cells in Malaysia. These cells were ordered to commence planning for a series of high-profile attacks against selected western diplomatic missions in Singapore, U.S. warships in the Strait of Malacca and U.S. military personnel in transit on shore leave, Changi airport and Singaporean defense facilities. JI emissaries went to Afghanistan to present their terrorist prospective to al Qaeda, but al Qaeda took no action. In late 2000, Hambali initiated a coordinated campaign involving thirty church bombings in eleven cities in six different Indonesian provinces. Hambali’s ambitious terrorist plans for Singapore came to an abrupt end when Malaysian and Singaporean security authorities conducted a series of arrests of JI suspects in 2001 and 2002. Hambali escaped to Thailand where he met in Bangkok in February 2002 with Noordin Mohammad Top and Azahari Husin to discuss a shift in strategy to “soft targets.” This led to the Bali bombings in October 2002. The antagonism between the majority and extremist minority within JI further intensified when Ba’asyir founded the Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI) in August 2000. Ba’asyir became so involved with MMI that he turned over day-today running of JI to an assistant (ICG 2004 3). JI’s extremist faction argued that the JI should continue to pursue its aims as an underground organization. Even more importantly, JI’s radicals objected to working with Muslim political parties

15 who sought to bring about Islamic law in Indonesia through elections and the parliamentary process. The militants viewed this as accommodation with a nonIslamic state that would “contaminate the faithful” and was therefore forbidden. The eruption of sectarian violence in Poso in Central Sulawesi in late 1998 and in Ambon (Maluku) in 1999 also exposed the growing fissures in JI. It took the JI leadership a full six months to decide to send forces to Maluku. The conflict in Ambon revealed differences between Mantiqi 2 and Mantiqi 3. At a June 1999 meeting of JI leaders, for example, the head of Mantiqi 2 was heavily criticized for being “too slow and bureaucratic” (ICG 2004 4). By the time the head of military operations for JI was dispatched there were many other militant groups active on the scene. Some members of JI even joined a local militia groups before the JI leadership had decided on its policy. JI’s role was mainly confined to training. The Bali bombings of October 2002 entrenched the deep rift within JI. Just prior to the bombings, Ba’aysir addressed several meetings of MMI-JI members and “argued strenuously that bombings and the armed struggle for an Islamic state should be put on hold for the time being because they would have negative repercussions for the movement” (ICG 2002 4) In other words, Ba’asyir’s objections were tactical. Ba’aysir’s advice was not accepted by JI’s extremist faction. Although they continued to show respect and acknowledge him as head of the JI, “the radicals began searching for new leaders closer to their way of thinking” (ICG 2002 4). In August 2003, Australian intelligence noted “a clear split between some JI cells strongly pushing for a return to political agitation and propaganda and others that advocate nothing less than increased militancy” (Chulov and Walters 2003). JI’s extremist minority carried through on their plans. In August 2003 and September 2004, respectively, they conducted suicide bombings outside the J. W.

16 Marriott Hotel and Australia Embassy in Jakarta. Once again internal differences surfaced within JI, the militants were criticized for conducting an operation that resulted in mostly Indonesian deaths. When sectarian conflict between Christians and Muslims re-erupted in Poso in October 2003, this precipitated another debate in JI “over how, where, and when to wage jihad” (IGG 2004 1). The majority of JI members in south Sulawesi were mainly “focused on building up military capacity and creating a mass base through religious indoctrination to support what would effectively be an Islamic revolution in the country when the time is ripe…”(ICG 2004 24).. JI’s extremist faction argued that encouraging violence in Poso and extending sectarian conflict to Malaysia and Thailand would attract more recruits and funding to the global jihadist cause.. This split in JI pitted the leaders of Mantiqi I against those of Mantiqi 2. Each of JI’s terrorist outrages has generated actionable intelligence that has led to the arrest or killing of key JI militants. The cumulative impact of these losses impacted on all levels of JI’s organization and leadership resulting in a severe dislocation of JI’s internal structure. JI’s mid-level organization was seriously degraded. JI has had to pare down the table of organization set out in its guidelines. The regional shura reportedly no longer functions and the mantiqi level of organization also reportedly no longer operates. By mid-2003, the JI had been so decimated by the arrest of its members that some wakalahs collapsed entirely. According to a senior member of Australia’s counter-terrorism effort, “JI has become a bit fractured from within” with a disparate collection of cells working at cross purposes due to deep divisions over strategy and no clear leader. In August 2003, for example, the head of JI’s military operations cell in Jakarta was planning to bomb the Bank Central Asia office, unaware that another cell was planning the suicide bombing of the J. W. Marriott Hotel. To take another example, although JI is able to recruit new members some of JI’s recruitment is

17 being conducted by individuals who are deeply opposed to Hambali and targeting of westerners. In sum, new recruitment does not necessarily produce more foot soldiers for the radical extremists within JI. JI training activities are now being conducted on a reduced scale in Sulawesi and Mindanao but the quality of this training does not match that which was offered in Afghanistan or at Camp Abu Bakar in the southern Philippines before it was overrun. JI has never had a strong financial base and al Qaeda funding has been marginal to its operations. The Bali bombers, for example, had to rob a bank to finance their operation. JI reportedly received only $140,000 from al Qaeda over a three year period. The separate arrests of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Hambali resulted in drying up of this source of funds. JI also has relied heavily on public donations to support its operations in conflict areas such as Maluku and Sulawesi. The dampening down of sectarian conflict has closed off this avenue for mobilizing domestic funding. JI has also been the beneficiary of external funds from Saudi Arabia. However the arrest of a courier in 2004 disrupted this source of funds as well. According to Indonesian police sources, JI members turned to selling mobile phone vouchers to raise funds. JI’s precarious financial position has proved an impediment to its operations and may explain the turn to explosives carried in backpacks by suicide bombers. JI, for example, is unable to support the families of all its arrested members. Some members of JI have had to hire out their services to other militant groups. Other JI members have taken to robbery to raise cash. But overall there is little evidence that JI has become involved into criminal activities in a systematic way (narcotics trade, credit card fraud or people smuggling). In summary, by 2003 JI had become a badly fractured organization in disarray. According to Nasir Abbas, a former JI regional leade now in custody, speaking in 2004: “JI is in ruins now. Anybody who was a JI member is no longer claiming to be a JI member now. Azahari and Noordin are the most dangerous, but even

18 they don’t say they are part of JI now. There is no management, no administration anymore” (Rekhi 2004). As ICG reports on terrorism and political violence make clear, “terrorism analysis in Indonesia has focused too much on JI to the exclusion of smaller groups with local grievances…” (ICG 2004 1). With respect to the re-emergence of sectarian violence in Poso in 2003, for example, the main instigators were local members of a militia group called Mujahidin KOMPAK. This militia was “spawned by but independent of JI” (ICG 2004 1). There were also many other local actors involved as well, such as Laskar Jundullah in Sulawesi. For example, the extremist faction led by Azahari bin Hussin had to draw in recruits from outside JI to execute the suicide bombing outside the Australian Embassy in 2004. The suicide bomber was a member of Darul Islam (Rekhi 2004). This leads to the conclusion that just as with the case of the al Qaeda-centric paradigm, it is also a mistake to view political violence by extremist Muslim groups in Indonesia exclusively through a JI-centric framework.

A Net Assessment Al Qaeda, defined as Jason Burke’s hardcore, has been decimated globally. But the appeal of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda’s ideology lives on. Al Qaeda’s links with Southeast Asia have been disrupted but not severed. According to Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Kelty, “al Qaeda” is still infiltrating the region by exploiting popular frustrations and grievances. In a recent speech he stated, “We are still witnessing the development of various groups, including Jemaah Islamiah and al-Qa’ida, all of which are directing resources and energies in training, mobilization, recruitment and radicalization” (O’Brien 2005). JI’s organizational development, and regional outreach to likeminded militant groups in Southeast Asia, was severely disrupted in Malaysia and Singapore due

19 to the action by security authorities in 2001-02 and subsequently. JI in Indonesia has been similarly decimated by police operations; but like al Qaeda JI continues to function. According to police intelligence reports, JI in Indonesia has been reduced to roughly one thousand followers and JI’s militant pro-bombing faction is estimated to number up to fifty. JI remnants are concentrated in four main areas: Lamongan, East Java; Semarang, Central Java; Banten, West Java and Poso, South Sulawesi. The wakalah structure and training camps reportedly continue to function in Poso. Indonesia’s Defence Minister, Juwono Sudarsono, stated in late 2005 that JI was “virtually finished” as a tight knit terrorist network in Indonesia. He estimated the hard core to number between 150 and 200 persons (quoted in Walters 2005). A confidential Indonesian government intelligence report noted in 2006 that the JI terrorist network survived death of Azahari bin Husin, its master bomb maker, by going further underground into independent cells called thoifah muqatilah or combat unit. These cells continue to recruit suicide bombers. (Associated Press, February 24, 2006). In 2005 there were reports that two key JI leaders, Azahari bin Husin and Noordin Mohammad Top, both Malaysians, had either broken off from JI to form their own splinter group or were operating independently of JI’s central command structure. Azahari and Noordin were responsible for the second bombing attacks on Bali on 1st October 2005. The three suicide bombers were unknown both to authorities and veteran JI members. They had been trained in Mindanao and entered Indonesia immediately before the attack. As on previous occasions, the bombing outrage on Bali led to actionable intelligence and the arrest of nearly forty suspects. Most notably Indonesian police killed Azahari in a shoot out in November 2005 and captured a treasure trove of documents with details of planning methods and future operations.

20 Among the captured material was a video containing the testimonies of the Bali suicide bombers and a statement by Noordin Top, claiming to be head of an organization called Tandzim Qaedat al-Jihad. In choosing this name, Noordin appeared to mimicking Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Iraq insurgent group, Tanzim Qaedatal-Jihad fi Balad al-Radidin (Organization of the Base of Jihad in the Land of the Two Rivers). A similar generic name was used by a group claiming responsibility for the July 7, 2005 London Underground bombings

Tanzim

Qaedatal-Jihad fi Europa. Analysts believe these groups are engaged in political posturing by ideologically aligning themselves with bin Laden and al Qaeda. Intelligence specialists can discern no evidence of operational links. As noted above, Southeast Asia’s Afghan veterans relocated their training camps from South Asia to Mindanao in 1995 where they made common cause with the MILF. In July 2000, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) overran a major training complex known as Camp Abu Bakar. JI remnants fled and set up training camps elsewhere. Due to Indonesian police action against JI, the southern Philippines has become the JI’s major training base. In addition, Filipino security officials report that local extremist groups receive funding for their operations from both JI and al Qaeda. On the eve of the first Bali bombings in October 2002, two key JI planners, Dulmatin and Umar Patek, fled to Mindanao to avoid arrest. There they joined other JI members who were working with elements of the MILF and the Abu Sayyaf Group. Patek played an instrumental role in two major bombing incidents in Davao in 2003. In recent years, the ASG has reinvented itself from a criminal gang into a jihadist organisation. For example, the ASG was responsible for the February 2004 bombing of the SuperFerry 14 which killed 130 passengers, the worst terrorist outrage in the Philippines. Dulmatin assisted this operation by priming the main explosive device. A year later, the ASG carried out three simultaneous bombings in Manila’s financial district and two cities in Mindanao.

21 In June 2005, Dulmatin and Patek met with Azahari bin Husin, Janjalani (the leader of the Abu Sayyaf Group) and Hilarion del Rosario Santos, the head of the Raja Solaiman Movement (RSM), in Mindanao to plan operations. The RSM consists of Filipino Christian converts to Islam. Analysts speculate that Dulmatin and Patek have in effect separated themselves from JI and are now part of the ASG structure (The Weekend Australian, December 3-4, 2005). Dulmatin and Patek continue to train Indonesians for operations in their home country. According to documents seized by Filipino security officials, JI ran three terrorist training classes in Mindanao in 2004. The most recent class graduated thirty-four members in January 2005. Intelligence analysts estimate that up to thirty JI members regularly cross back and forth from Indonesia to Mindanao for training. As a result of AFP pressure on the JI-ASG infrastructure they have been forced to conduct training on the run (Channel News Asia, October 5, 2005). In a major success, Philippine security authorities captured RSM leader Santos in October. According to the Philippines Defence Secretary, Avelino Cruz, JI does not pose a serious threat at present. Such is not the case in southern Thailand where a dormant Muslim separatist movement flared up in 2004. In January, separatists conducted a spectacular raid on an armoury. This was followed up in April when one hundred young men were killed in poorly executed assault on police and army troops. In April 2005, the Thai government placed three southern Muslim majority provinces (Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala) under martial law. In July these provinces were placed under an emergency rule. Tensions in the southern provinces skyrocketed after an incident at Tak Bai on 25th October 2005 in which seventy-eight Muslims were suffocated to death in army trucks. Five years ago Thai authorities estimated the number of active separatists at no more than two hundred. Now the figure in put in the thousands. More than 1,300 persons are estimated to have been killed since

22 January 2004. Muslim separatists have targeted Thai government officials, Buddhist monks and Muslim Thais accused of collaborating with authorities. So far the separatist insurgency appears to be rooted in local grievances with no discernable connections to outside jihadist groups such as JI or al Qaeda. Thai police and security officials are unsure who is responsible for initiating the wave of violence. Two groups are frequently mentioned in intelligence reports: Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Co-ordinate (BRN-C) and Gerakan Mujahideen Islam Pattani (GMIP). The former includes remnants of earlier separatist groups, while the GMIP core consists of fifty or more Afghan veterans. A key concern of regional security officials is that the ethno-nationalist conflict in southern Thailand could attract militant Muslims from outside the country and transform itself into a jihadist conflict. Or, southern Thai separatist groups could seek outside assistance. For the moment that is no documented evidence of external jihadist support for the conflict in southern Thailand. In summary, a net assessment of political terrorism in Southeast Asia would have to conclude that al Qaeda is no longer a central actor in regional affairs. A Thai Army intelligence officer stated, for example, that al Qaeda’s network in the region has been all but destroyed (The Bangkok Post, December 1, 2005). But individuals who forged bonds during the anti-Soviet campaign in Afghanistan and subscribe to al Qaeda’s jihadist ideology still maintain contact through a diffuse network to promote their cause. JI has been contained but not eliminated. JI is unlikely to recover from its setbacks in Malaysia and Singapore. The JI network in Indonesia has been reconfigured into a loosely defined network of independent cells, which initiate their own actions, with intermittent contact with national leaders. The majority of JI members still plan and train in the hope of transforming Indonesia into an Islamic state by violent means if necessary. The main threat today comes from

23 the coalition of JI-ASG-RSM militants in the southern Philippines. Filipino police report that Dulmatin and Patek regularly use satellite phones to contact militants in Malaysia and Indonesia. JI’s militant minority, now operating independently, clearly poses a major security threat. Key figures such as Zulkarnaen and Noordin Mohammad Top remain at large. They possess the operational and technical skills to mount further terrorist outrages. Due to its decentralized nature JI is harder to detect and penetrate. This is all the more so because of the trend to recruit and train a new generation of post-Afghan jihadi suicide bombers. The activities of other militant groups, which are not part of the JI structure but which interact with JI militants on a local level, also pose a security threat due to their proclivity to stir up sectarian violence. Finally, two of the major challenges facing regional governments are how to deal with Muslim separatism in the southern Philippines and southern Thailand. There are hopeful signs that the government of the Philippines and the MILF may reach a political settlement that addresses Muslim grievances (Inquirer News Service, October 5, 2005). This would be a major step forward in isolating the ASG-JI network. The current linkage between the ASG and JI breakaway operatives poses a threat to both Indonesia and the Philippines. Mindanao currently serves as a secure base area and spring board for Indonesian terrorists. JI remnants also bolster the ASG’s technical capacity to conduct sophisticated bombing operations. The situation in southern Thailand may be entering a slightly more optimistic phase as well. The Thaksin government’s initial heavy handed approach to counter-terrorism is now clearly perceived as having been counter-productive. Greater stress is now being given to a political strategy that addresses local grievances.

24

References Bonner, Raymond, 2003. “Officials Fear New Attacks by Militants in Southeast Asia,” The New York Times, November 22. Bonner, Raymond, 2005. “JI No Longer an Organizational Threat,” The New York Times, November 16. Burke, Janon, 2003. Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror. London: I. B. Tarus. Chulov, Martin and Patrick Walters, 2003. “JI Deeply Divided on Use of Violence,” The Australian, August 14. International Grisis Group, 2002. Indonesia Backgrounder: How the Jemaah Islamiyah Terrorist Network Operates, Asia Report No. 54, Jakarta and Brussels, December 11. International Grisis Group, 2003. Jemaah Islamiyah in South East Asia: Damaged But Still Dangerous, Asia Report No. 63, Jakarta and Brussels, August 23. International Grisis Group, 2004. Indonesia Backgrounder: Jihad in Central Sulawesi, Asia Report No. 74, Jakarta and Brussels, February 3. O’Brien, Natalie, 2005. “Al-Qa’ida ‘growing in Southeast Asia’,” The Australian, November 21. Pincus, Walter, 2005. “Analysts See Bin Laden, Zarqaqi as Independent Operators,” The Washington Post, March 5. Reeve, Simon, 1999. The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Rekhi, Shefali, 2004. “Terror in South-east Asia,” The Straits Times, October 25. Sageman, Marc, 2004. Understanding Terror Networks. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

25 Sageman, Marc, 2005. “The Normality of Global Jihadi Terrorism,” The Journal of International Security Affairs, 8, 79-90. Stern, Jessica, 2003. “The Protean Enemy,” Foreign Affairs, July/August, 82(4), 2740. The 9/11 Commission, 2005. Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Walters, Patrick, 2005. “JI ‘Near Death’ But Still a Threat,” The Australian, December 8.