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| Southeast Asia |
| JI - Who are they? |
| 2003-08-14 |
| EFL Since December 2001, when authorities in Singapore started to crack open JI’s local operations, some 190 members of the organisation have been arrested across the region, including more than 70 in Indonesia. Among those in custody are a number of key commanders, including the alleged paramount leader or amir, Abu Bakar Bashir. The 64-year-old Indonesian cleric is facing trial in Jakarta on charges of terrorism, and prosecutors are due to make their sentence demand this week. But police and intelligence officials acknowledge that these arrests and prosecutions leave a substantial part of JI intact. Soon after the Bali bombings, when Bashir was under pressure from authorities, JI appointed a new leader, Abu Rusdan, to ensure continuity. It can be assumed that later, when Rusdan himself was captured, JI was ready with another successor. Although the identities of many of the key leadership figures have been known to security authorities around the region for some time, they have been hard to pin down. Hambali, also known as Riduan Isamuddin, has topped the region’s most wanted list since late 2001. The 39-year-old West Java native has been one of the key operational and financial conduits between JI and al Qaeda. He has set the overall strategy for terrorism operations across the region and on occasion acted as a kind of coach, inspiring JI operatives just before they go into an attack. Since becoming the subject of an international search, he will have been forced to curtail some of these activities, but he almost certainly remains a key strategist. His whereabouts have been one of the great guessing games. Security officials believe they had tracked him to southern Thailand earlier this year. Estimates for JI’s region-wide membership range between 500 and 1500, and analysts believe it has sufficient depth of training and ability to replace the losses suffered to its leadership structure from the arrests now made in six countries. There is also a huge potential recruiting base from the thousands of members of Laskar Jihad, Laskar Jundallah and other Jihadi groups that have sprung up in the last few years. Even before the Marriott bombing, evidence was steadily accumulating that JI was able to amass the materials and carry out the detailed planning needed to execute successful attacks. In the weeks leading up to the bombing, Indonesian and foreign police and security agencies were becoming increasingly apprehensive about the risk of impending attack in the capital. Behind the anxiety was the discovery of a long and elaborate list of potential targets when police arrested nine members of a JI cell in Jakarta and the Javanese coastal city of Semarang in operations in early July. According to diplomatic and police sources, a number of western businesses and locations in Jakarta’s CBD, including seven US oil and gas companies, were included on a list of 56 targets. This JI cell also intended to assassinate six senior figures in Megawati’s Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P) and the wealthy Indonesian-Chinese ÂÂdeveloper Ciputra. Police also said the documents uncovered in the Semarang arrests indicate JI has links to 141 Islamic boarding schools and 388 Islamic clerics. But will the Indonesians do anything about these links? As the police have stepped up the pressure on JI, the organisation has moved to consolidate. Indonesian intelligence officials say a key figure in the consolidation within Indonesia has been another Afghan-trained Indonesian known as Zulkarnaen, who heads a JI military wing, Askari Islamiyah. Zulkarnaen, also known to police as Arif Sunarsi and Daud, is an alumnus of Bashir’s Islamic boarding school in Ngruki, near the Central Java city of Solo. The Ngruki and Afghan experience are a common link for many of JI’s senior figures. According to accounts Mukhlas gave police, Zulkarnaen took part in initial planning meetings for the Bali bombings. Police also believe Zulkarnaen played a role in directing the bombings of a Toyota dealership and McDonald’s restaurant in the South Sulawesi capital Makassar last December. The Makassar bombing cell was disrupted before it could effect plans for attacks on churches and priests. After the loss of a number of senior commanders, Zulkarnaen appears to have assumed a bigger role in running JI’s operations. Security officials think there is a good chance he was involved at some stage in preparations for the Marriott bombing. JI undertook a long preparation before launching into its terrorist campaign in Indonesia in earnest during 2000. The extent of the work that went into building up JI became glaringly apparent with a joint Indonesian-Australian police operation that led to the arrest of Mukhlas and the discovery of a JI command post in Central Java on December 4. When police entered the command post – one room of a simple cottage close to Solo – they found a wealth of JI records and training manuals. JI leaders clearly have a penchant for ÂÂwriting things down – philosophies, ÂÂstrategies, training procedures, operational plans and personnel records. According to a police inventory, among the piles of books and papers was "the ÂÂterrorist’s handbook", a document ÂÂproviding ÂÂinstructions on acquiring explosives and chemicals, listing the availability of "useful household chemicals" and describing "explosive recipes" and "ignition devices". There were several books on "how to make a bomb", including one allegedly written by Dr Azahari Husin, a former university lecturer from Malaysia who designed the Bali bomb. The papers provided evidence of JI’s extensive investment in training, sending its members to the southern Philippines to be trained in camps of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and to its own military academy which provided a four-semester course over two years at a site called "Muaskar" somewhere near Solo. JI had been meticulous in keeping track of individual performances, giving police a volume of JI members’ names. However, there were whole years missing from the records, indicating JI had taken the precaution of not storing all this data in one place. The storing of records and training manuals is probably part of their attempts to be the al-Qaeda of South East Asia. One book that caught the attention of investigating officers was A Guide to the Struggle of Al Jamaah Islamiyah. In two volumes, this laid out JI’s internal procedures, structures and strategy of achieving an Islamic caliphate. It envisaged three stages for the struggle. According to a police summary, the first stage was preparation, involving "preaching, recruitment, sending [recruits] to the Philippines and bombing projects". The second and third stages involved safeguarding Islam and the caliphate, both of which implied an Islamic state had already been created. This meant JI was still at the first stage. That sounds like quite the master plan... |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |
| #3 Looks like it might be time to redo the org chart, right, Hamboni? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-8-14 4:30:29 PM |
| #2 I have never trusted Aunt Jemaah since that top came off the syrup bottle... |
| Posted by: flash91 2003-8-14 10:24:26 AM |
| #1 Hambali favors himself as an islamic preacher of sorts. He has been associated with al Qaeda since 1988, when he traveled to Afghanistan to kill Russians. He has worked as a major funding source for JI and is believed to have been involved in Operation Bojinka - the 1995 plot to blow up 12 US flag airliners over the Pacific. |
| Posted by: Douglas De Bono 2003-8-14 9:32:24 AM |