Nivell Rayda – Its controversial leader, Abu Bakar Bashir, has been locked up inside a heavily fortified detention facility in Jakarta, but hard-line group Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid seems to have been anything but aimless without him.

About 1,700 kilometers away from Bashir's jail cell, hidden behind the walls of the Umar bin Khattab Islamic boarding school in the district of Bima, West Nusa Tenggara, his radical views were apparently alive and kicking.

As more details about the school have come out in the last few days, the emerging picture raises questions about just how much sway Bashir's ideology still has and how far it has spread.

Law enforcement officials believe a plot was brewing inside the school to attack the police, who many of Bashir's followers hold responsible for what they see as their leader's unjust arrest and conviction.

Inside the school's compound and in the surrounding area, police have found dozens of pipe bombs, eight Molotov cocktails and a stash of swords, arrows and machetes. Police also discovered maps of a local police station and details about its security system.

The school first garnered national media attention on July 2 – just two weeks after Bashir was convicted for supporting a terrorist training camp in Aceh – when a student was accused of killing a police officer.

Sixteen-year-old Sa'ban Uma allegedly pulled out a bayonet and stabbed First Brig. Rokhmad Syaiffudin repeatedly, killing the 29-year-old instantly. Sa'ban claimed to be a member of JAT, and JAT officials confirmed that the school was affiliated with the group.

Less than two weeks later, an explosion in Umar bin Khattab's compound killed the school's treasurer, Firdaus. The blast was believed to have been caused by a homemade bomb that detonated prematurely.

It is difficult to say exactly what the 45 students – most in their teens – were learning at the school, but it was evidently more than Koranic verses.

"JAT is like a stopover for former militants with agendas of propagating jihad," terrorism analyst Noor Huda Ismail said. "As a legitimate organization, it is more far-reaching than Al Mukmin."

He was referring to Bashir's school in Ngruki, Central Java, which is believed to be a recruiting ground for militants and has been linked to the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorism network.

"We have guys like Uqbah visiting the school, people like Abu Tholut, preaching to the young about jihad, and yes, Bashir himself too," Ismail said. "These die-hard militants and recidivists have toured the country visiting JAT-affiliated schools."

Police have so far arrested nine people, including the school's principal, Abrory M. Ali. On Monday, a police source said Abrory had confessed to taking part in a paramilitary training camp led by wanted fugitive Santoso, alias Abu Wardah, the alleged mastermind behind a shooting that killed two police officers in Central Sulawesi in May.

The police source said Abrory learned how to use weapons and build bombs at the camp in Poso, Central Sulawesi.

Abrory took over the school after his predecessor, Mujahidul Haq, also known as Uqbah, was arrested last December for raising funds for the terrorist training camp in Aceh. Uqbah, a member of JAT, was arrested in Bima. Uqbah and Abu Tholut are being tried for the Aceh camp case.

Tholut was convicted for his role in a 2001 bombing at a shopping plaza in Central Jakarta that wounded six. He served five years of an eight-year sentence before being released for good behavior. Tholut also saw combat in Afghanistan and helped train Islamist militants in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao.

"Police should monitor other schools affiliated with JAT," said Taufik Andrie, a terrorism expert at the Institute for International Peace Building.

"Abu Tholut, Uqbah and Bashir are shifting their tactics from secretly recruiting people and training them to be combatants to teaching radical ideologies," he said. "You can't charge someone for teaching an ideology, but the concept of jihad is instilled in the minds of their students."

Taufik said that Tholut used to have a fixed preaching schedule at a number of schools and mosques associated with JAT. "There's Bima, another one in Bekasi [West Java], Surabaya [East Java], Solo [Central Java] and Palu [Central Sulawesi]," he said.

A team from the National Police counterterrorism unit is pursuing two men suspected of constructing explosives inside the boarding school in Bima. "We are hunting Anas and Hari. Both of them were bomb makers together with the late Firdaus," Insp. Gen. Anton Bachrul Alam, a spokesman for the National Police, said on Thursday.

When Bashir was convicted last month, his followers vowed to continue his teachings. "Densus [88], God's wrath be upon you," JAT members shouted after the verdict, referring to the National Police's elite counterterrorism unit.

But since the blast in Bima and subsequent police raid, JAT has tried to distance itself from acts of terrorism. "Abrory left JAT years ago and so has Abu Tholut," said the group's spokesman, Sonhadi.

On Thursday, Abrory's lawyer, Achmad Michdan, said the allegations against his client were "trumped up" and claimed that reports indicated the school blast had involved a stove, not a bomb. "There were no damaged walls, no hole in the floor, no collapsed roof parts," he said. "We suspect this is all engineered."

[Additional reporting by Farouk Arnaz.]