Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – Terrorist suspects grouped under Jamaah Anshorut Tauhid (JAT), who were arrested recently in Greater Jakarta, are not necessarily linked with the terrorist training camp in Aceh, a terrorism analyst says.
Police should not be too quick to link JAT, established by firebrand Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir in 2008, to the Aceh terrorists, said Sidney Jones, a terrorism expert from International Crisis Group, on Monday.
"The presence of a JAT governing council member among the suspects arrested in Aceh recently may suggest a link between the organization and the terrorist group. "But we don't know exactly what the institutional link is," Jones told The Jakarta Post.
Jones was referring to Ubaid, a member of the JAT governing council who was arrested at the Aceh training camp. Jones said some people associated with Ba'asyir were involved in the camp, but said more information was required to determine what Ba'asyir's role was in Aceh.
At least 14 terrorist suspects have been arrested by the National Police's Detachment 88 antiterror squad in Greater Jakarta since last Thursday. Seven of the suspects were nabbed in a rented house in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta, the office of JAT's Jakarta branch.
Almost simultaneously, antiterror officers also arrested a suspect at a hotel in Menteng, Central Jakarta, another suspect in Petamburan, Central Jakarta, and three in Setu Bekasi, West Java.
National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Edward Aritonang confirmed that two more suspects had been arrested following the Thursday raid, but refused to elaborate.
Achmad Michdan, a member of the Muslim Lawyers Team (TPM), the legal adviser for the terrorist suspects, confirmed the 14 were all JAT members. However, Michdan said the organization had no connection to Aceh terrorists or any other terrorist group.
"JAT is like other Islamic groups. Their activities are only praying and studying Islam, and have nothing to do with the Aceh terror activities or the J.W. Marriott hotel bombings," he said.
Jones also said Ubaid, together with classmates from Jamaah Islamiyah School in Solo, Central Java, Urwah and Deni Suramto, had worked with a notorious terrorist figure, the late Noordin M. Top, in planning the Australian Embassy bombing in 2004, but they were arrested in July 2004 before the bombing.
"When they were released in 2007, Deni and Urwah got back in touch with Noordin almost immediately, while Ubaid joined Ba'asyir's JAT in September 2008," she said.
She said it was a bit difficult to link the Aceh group with Ba'asyir because of the involvement of Aman Abdurrahman, who was arrested in connection with the camp in Aceh, because the two had an ongoing ideological disagreement.
"Aman was expelled from JAT in early 2009 because he disagreed with Ba'asyir. If Aman's followers were involved in Aceh... the group wasn't directed by Ba'asyir.
"The group seemed to have involved people who were close to Noordin, people from Darul Islam, people from Kompak, but also Abdurrahman's followers who disagreed with Ba'asyir," she said.
Jones said the camp, which functioned to train Indonesians, Filipinos and people from other countries, was allied to other jihadi organizations.
Also on Monday, a number of TPM members came to the National Police headquarters, asking police to release the 12 arrested terrorist suspects unless they could produce strong evidence linking them to terrorist activities. (rdf)