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JI splinter group ’carried out attacks’
Several Jemaah Islamiah members detained by Indonesian police said an extremist splinter faction of the group is responsible for conducting terror attacks in the country. Malaysian Nasir Abbas said yesterday during a broadcast by El Shinta radio station that JI has broken up into at least three distinct parts. ’The third group is extremely radical. I suspect that this radical group is behind the terror and bombings in many places,’ said the detainee who claimed to be the chief of JI overseeing the Malaysian state of Sabah, Indonesia’s Kalimantan and Sulawesi and the southern Philippines.
If that is true, then Hambali, the operations commander of JI, must be part of the ’radicals’. Perhaps spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir angered them because he saw the chance of pursuing a Sharia state through political means, like the Indonesian Mujahideen Council he set up that included Indonesian Islamist parties.
It could also be considered a symptom of the breakup of the international terror machine. Qaeda's negotiating with Yemen, Jemaah Islamiyah in Egypt is taking the non-violent path, Karzai says Qaeda's wiped out in Afghanistan (and could be right). Even the Soddies are thumping them. There are probably a lot of arguments going on within the terror machine. Paleo IJ is going through its own crisis at the moment...
Other detainees, including Mohamed Rais who was arrested by police in May, have also spoken of serious dissent within JI. Rais, whom police said helped to plan July’s attack against the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta and recruited suicide bomber Asmar Latin Sani who died in the attack, also claimed only the third, ultra-radical JI splinter is planning and executing terror attacks.
That would explain why there have been comparatively few attacks, considering JI is supposed to have a membership in the low thousands.
The other two factions included one that sticks to JI’s original goal of establishing Islamic states in the region through peaceful means, and a more hardline group that supports attacks but wants selective targeting of victims. Analysts including Ms Sidney Jones, the International Crisis Group’s project director in Jakarta, have suggested that the JI has shown internal rifts. Several JI cadres may feel attacks such as the one at the Marriott kill Indonesians and Muslims, not foreigners. Traditionalists also fear that this kind of extreme militancy may hamper the process of spreading Islamic teachings into the larger society.
In the past 5 years or so they have made enormous progress in introducing radical Wahhabi/Salafi ideas into the mainstream, I could see why many wouldn’t want to jepordise that with a few car bombs.
Also, every time they pull a big operation, their leadership gets slammed in the investigation. Bali, Riyadh, Daniel Pearl, Karachi Sheraton, and WTC — happened every time. When they lay low and don't do anything is when it's tough to find them...
The good news is: Internal rifts have caused other radical groups to implode, and JI may too. The police are now said to be pressing those who claim to belong to moderate factions of JI to help nab their more militant associates.
Posted by: Paul Moloney 2003-09-28
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=19177