B. Raman – In looking at the car bomb explosion outside the Australian Embassy in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta last Thursday, one must avoid an over-interpretation and over-assessment of the blast, which caused the death of nine persons and injured more than 100 others, most of them civilians.

The post-September 11, 2001, breed of al-Qaeda watchers tend to hype up every act of terrorism, projecting it as the outcome of an al-Qaeda grand strategy and evidence of the group's octopus-like nature, thereby creating an unwarranted perception of al-Qaeda's continuing anti-state potency and the seeming helplessness of the state in countering this threat. By doing so, these al-Qaeda watchers tend to play into the group's hands and give it an image that helps it in its self-perpetuation.

While the death of even a single individual at the hands of terrorists is shocking and ought to be a matter of concern to the state and the international community, one has to note that on the scale of terrorist incidents, the Jakarta blast would fall into the category of low-to-medium or, at the most, medium gravity. Such incidents have been taking place at frequent intervals in India since 1956. As a result, Indians treat terror attacks with a sense of balance and consciously avoid overreaction and over-projection, which would be counter-productive.

Presuming that the perpetrators of the blast belonged to Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), which seeks to establish a pan-Islamic state in Southeast Asia and is the group blamed for several previous bombings in Indonesia, what is really significant is not that it was able to organize last week's bombing despite stepped-up anti-terrorism security in Indonesia in general and in Jakarta in particular since the JW Marriott Hotel blast in August last year, but that it took JI more than a year to find a suitable volunteer for another suicide mission and to procure the necessary material such a move required.

This speaks well of the counter-terrorism drive instituted by the Indonesian government after the Bali bombings in October 2002. One should avoid projecting the blast as the outcome of any weaknesses in the government's policies and actions. The lessons emerging from the blast are as follows:

The motivation of the jihadi terrorist organizations in Indonesia, whether it is the JI or any other organization, and their urge to vent their anger through acts of terrorism remain strong.

A reservoir of potential suicide bombers is still available to these groups, but no evidence shows that this is an expanding reservoir.

Despite the measures taken by the Indonesian government to strengthen its intelligence collection capability and the assistance it receives from Australia, the US and other countries, Indonesia continues to have gaps in its intelligence coverage. Such gaps are inevitable and cannot be totally eliminated.

Indonesian society still posses on-going pockets of anger that are exploited by jihadi terrorists. In some instances this anger is directed against the government, either because of its perceived anti-Islamic policies or because of its cooperation with Australia and the US. In other instances, it is directed against external powers such as the US and Australia, which are viewed as anti-Islam. The anger against Australia is stronger because of its alleged role in the separation of East Timor from Indonesia, its perceived anti-Islamic immigration policy and its support for US military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Jihadi terrorists wanting to remain active and grab media headlines exploit this anger.

This latest terrorist strike does not appear to have had any strategic objective. It was a pure and simple tactical strike to let the world know that the jihadi terrorists remain alive and kicking.

The gravity and impact of the strike would have been greater and the reverberations arising from it would have been felt far beyond Indonesia if the jihadi terrorists had succeeded in their tactical objective of harming Australian lives and interests. The fact that the Australian mission was able to withstand such an attack is not only a tribute to its physical security, but is also proof of the validity of the counter-terrorism adage that where physical security is strong and effective, terrorists cannot prevail, even if intelligence is weak, and where physical security is weak, terrorists might succeed even if intelligence is strong.

There is no evidence so far to connect the blast with al-Qaeda, nor with the observance of the third anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the US, the forthcoming presidential elections in Indonesia or the parliamentary elections in Australia. The impact of the blast on the elections, either in Indonesia or in Australia, will be minimal, if not nil, unless this blast turns out to be the precursor of more to come. Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri and Australian Prime Minister John Howard and his party may still lose the elections, but their defeat, if it comes about, will not be because of this blast but because of their sins of commission and omission in many other matters.

Australia has not yet rid itself of its image as a regional surrogate of the US. The overreaction of its leaders to incidents such as the blast, their unwise statements and actions, such as the high-profile visit of Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer to Jakarta immediately after the blast, and their habit of throwing their weight around in the name of counter-terrorism cooperation, with ostentatious offers of financial and professional help in dealing with terrorism, add to the darkness of its image.

That the JI is alive and kicking should not be a matter of surprise. It has much deeper roots in Indonesian society than al-Qaeda has in the society of any Islamic country. To expect its early withering away would be overly optimistic.

Australian police officials have been quoted by the media as warning of another possible terrorist strike directed at Australians in Indonesia. An equally strong possibility is a JI strike in Malaysia directed against the local government or against the nationals and interests of the US and Australia. The Pakistan-based jihadi components of the International Islamic Front have maintained a high level of virulence in their rhetoric against not only their own government, but also against Indonesia and Malaysia ever since the arrest and handing over to the Malaysian and Indonesian authorities some months ago of several Malaysians and Indonesians, including a brother of Hambali, the projected operational chief of JI, from a madrassa (seminary)in Karachi run by the Lashkar-e-Toiba.

B Raman is a former additional secretary, cabinet secretariat for the government of India, New Delhi. Presently, he serves as director of the Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and is a distinguished fellow and convener for the Chennai chapter of the Observer Research Foundation.