Nurdin Hasan & Farouk Arnaz – Terrorism expert Sidney Jones said on Friday that four suspects arrested during recent police operations in the Jalin Jantho region of Aceh Besar may be linked to the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and not regional terror organization Jemaah Islamiyah.

"Even though two of the suspects arrested originally came from Pandeglang, there is still no strong evidence linking those arrested to JI," Jones told the Jakarta Globe, referring to the arrests on Monday of four men, two of whom were originally from Pandeglang, Banten. Two others were Acehnese residents.

She said JI had never had a base in Pandeglang, even though executed Bali bomber Imam Samudra originally came from the area.

At least 10 men have been arrested in the past week for conducting paramilitary training activities in the Jalin Jantho region. Police said they were on the lookout for dozens more men who are believed to be hiding in the forested regions of Aceh Besar.

Jones said the men were most likely part of a splinter group of GAM, which waged a three-decade-long guerrilla war for independence until a 2005 peace deal.

"It is too early for us to assume. We do not know what they want and what their aim is," Jones said, adding that both GAM and the JI had very different priorities and ideologies, with JI primarily focused on waging jihad on an international scale and GAM focused on nationalism.

She added that in 1998 representatives from GAM and Al Qaeda met and discussed the possibility of working together but found "no connection." "GAM would not really support the idea of waging an international jihad because it fears it might lose support from some countries," Jones said.

More than 100 officers from the police's elite Mobile Brigade (Brimob) and the Aceh Police are continuing efforts to track down members of the armed group in Aceh Besar. Sources had earlier said those being hunted included an Afghan national, believed to be the instructor of the paramilitary training activities.

National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Edward Aritonang said that police had found indications that a foreigner was involved with the armed group but that no conclusions had been made about his nationality.

"We need to crosscheck with the embassy here whether or not documents we found at the site are valid or otherwise," Edward said, adding that the documents were issued by a Middle Eastern country. "We must investigate further whether or not this group is linked to JI."

Separately, Hendra Saputra, an official from the Aceh office of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), quoted a village chief in Aceh Besar as saying that he had once met with six members of the armed group.

"Abdul [the village chief] told me that one of them spoke Bahasa Indonesia devoid of an Acehnese accent. One of them said that the enemy was not the Acehnese, but infidels," Hendra said.

He said that he did not believe that the armed group was linked to GAM. "Where is the benefit of recruiting people to join paramilitary activities when former GAM members have gained financial and political positions today? Of those [recently] arrested, not a single one is a former GAM member," Hendra said.

Al Chaidar, a terrorism analyst in North Aceh, told the Globe that he still believed the armed group was linked to JI and most likely to the Banten faction.

"I suspect that Marzuki, an Acehnese living in Saree [a village in Aceh Besar], is involved in the camp," he said, referring to an Indonesian who attended a mujahideen training camp on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in 1986.

"Following the recent arrests, I have been unable to contact Marzuki," Al Chaidar said. "I fully believe that this armed group is not linked to either GAM or a splinter group, if there are any."

In Bali, the National Police's chief of detectives, Comr. Gen. Ito Sumardi, said police were investigating whether the armed group had any links to known terror groups. "This is still an [ordinary] case of crime, and not terrorism as yet," Ito said, adding that he was convinced that the network of the late suspected terror mastermind Noordin M Top was still active. "They are always looking for locations to target that will have a strategic impact."

[Additional reporting by Dessy Sagita and Made Arya Kencana.]