Tony Hotland, Jakarta – Future terror attacks in Indonesia may be less professional and even less well-executed than in the past, with Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) facing dissension over how to achieve its objectives, says Sidney Jones, a leading authority on the terror group.
She said that most followers of JI, blamed for a series of devastating blasts in Indonesia over the past years, had abandoned the strategy of launching bomb attacks, particularly on Western targets, as it was diverting the regional terror network away from its major objective of setting up an Islamic state in Southeast Asia.
Jones, the Southeast Asia project director of the International Crisis Group (ICG), said JI's leadership realized that the strategy had cost the network too much, with the arrest of over 200 of its members and outrage among the public.
"There won't be another attack that's as big as the Bali bombings. JI's alive, consolidating, actively recruiting, but most of its leadership is no longer interested in bombing Western targets as it's wasting time, funds and human resources," she told the sixth Asian-European Editors Forum in Jakarta on Tuesday.
However, she stressed that JI still posed a significant threat as it was building up a secure base in which an Islamic fundamentalist community could flourish, while simultaneously upgrading its military capacity to fight for the creation of a regional Islamic state in the future.
"And there's still a small faction within JI that endorses bombing, including (fugitive Malaysian bomb-makers) Azahari and Noordin Moh. Top," said Jones, who in June last year was forced by the Megawati Soekarnoputri government to leave Indonesia due to her "disruptive" work and reports.
The Brussels-based ICG is known for its authoritative, and frequently critical, reports on various security issues here, ranging from Aceh to JI.
"This marginalized faction is still seriously dangerous as they can still recruit through family and school ties, joint military training and shared combat experience," explained Jones, who said her review was based on a combination of interviews, interrogation depositions and sources close to radical networks.
She said such networks would likely form a new organization to continue their global war on the West, although they would face greater difficulties in recruiting people, including suicide bombers, from outside the JI due to a reduction in funding availability.
"There are smaller groups in Poso (Central Sulawesi) and Ambon (Maluku) who terrorize through bombs. There are still 18 known JI schools in Indonesia, which the government can't just close, although we know the addresses and the curriculum, because there's no criminal activity going on in there and it's politically impossible," said Jones.
Putting hurdles in the way of the recruitment process, according to Sidney, was one of the keys to the success of counterterrorism efforts, and this involved identifying persons vulnerable to being recruited.
"Looking at previous experiences, those who are recruited, for example, have family connections with former Darul Islam rebels. Or in Poso, they are former thugs or people whose families lost fortunes and relatives during the conflict there," she said.
While commending efforts to stamp out terrorism, Sidney said the government still needed to improve its intelligence while at the same time avoiding arbitrary legislation and abuses of power.
"I don't think that the danger is over nor that terrorism can ever be fully eradicated, but I think in this region we are in much better shape than three years ago," she said.