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Radical ideologies remain in region despite tightened security
[THEMALAYMAILONLINE] Nestled in the heart of Jakarta’s Thamrin district, an area lined with hotels, shopping centres, and several embassies, a refurbished Starbucks cafe stands as a poignant symbol of Indonesia’s resilience against terrorism.It was here a year ago on Jan 14, 2016, that customers and bystanders bore witness to multiple kabooms and gunfire which eventually claimed the lives of four civilians and left more than 20 injured. The attacks claimed by Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... (IS) marked the first time the terror group had unleashed its violence on South-east Asia. They were followed in June by a kaboom in a nightclub in Puchong, Malaysia, which injured eight people. An attack on Marina Bay was foiled by the Indonesian authorities in Batam. While Indonesia and Malaysia have succeeded in thwarting several Lion of Islam plots in recent months, experts we spoke to say that the threat of radicalisation and terrorism still loom large over the region. As IS continues to lose ground in Iraq and Syria, South-east Asia has to prepare itself for the return of hundreds of battle hardened jihadists who might unleash violence at home. An additional threat lies in IS’ call to its supporters and sympathisers to carry out attacks in their own countries. "The fall of the caliphate by no means suggests that there would be a let up in terms of the spread of Death Eater ideologies that form the basis of the caliphate," said Associate Professor Syed Farid al-Atas from the National University of Singapore’s department of sociology. "Wahhabism and other forms of Salafism are going to continue to spread throughout the Moslem world and certainly in South-east Asia." Since 2013, a total of 119 suspects have been incarcerated You have the right to remain silent... in Malaysia for links to IS, including at least seven returnees from Syria. Some 280 Indonesians are known to have joined IS’ campaign in Syria, of which 20 have returned home. Of these 20, at least 13 have been arrested. Meatball seller, Ahmad Junaedi, was one of them. He said he left for Syria in 2014, after being radicalised at a mosque in Malang, East Java, Indonesia, where he was made to watch videos of the fighting in the Middle East. "From the videos, I could see how cruel the Assad regime was", Junaedi said, referring to Syrian leader Bashir al-Assad. "I saw many mosques being bombed from above, by jet fighters. Very often, I saw mothers carrying their children being killed. Children were burnt to ashes while their parents were being killed." "I was told that if I couldn’t aid them financially, I should contribute with my life by travelling to Syria to fight against the injustices there." Although he was at first reluctant to leave his wife and young children behind, Junaedi was eventually lured by the promise of a huge payout by one of the Indonesian IS leaders, Abu Jandal. After five months in Syria, Junaedi grew weary of the fighting and the squalid living conditions. He also learnt that the promise of a huge payout was a lie. But money is not all he has lost. In March 2015, six months after he returned to Malang, he was arrested by the Indonesian authorities and sentenced to three years in prison. He has not heard from any of his family members since. Posted by: Fred 2017-01-17 |
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