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| Southeast Asia | |
| Indonesia Cuts Terror | |
| 2010-02-20 | |
| Indonesia has fallen off the map of the most-terror-prone places on Earth, corporate intelligence forecasters say. How did that happen in a nation once plagued by Bali's bombers? By annihilating the enemy. We watched it happen here. I was surprised in some respects, informed in others, gratified in still others... This week, Britain's Maplecroft group, an assessor of corporate risk, dropped Indonesia from its top 10 nations most likely to experience a mass-casualty terrorist attack. The group bases its Terrorism Risk Index entries on frequency and intensity of terror attacks and a nation's history. Likewise, the Swedish National Defense College has concluded that there's a diminishing threat in Indonesia. That's not the same as no threat at all, but it's a substantial improvement... If that sounds academic, consider that Indonesian and U.S. officials said no significant security risks threaten President Obama ahead of his weeklong trip to Indonesia next month. If there's anything there you can be sure it'll put in an appearance when the U.S. prez arrives... Now, to be sure, terrorism isn't completely gone from Indonesia. But there's been a lot of silence recently from that island country on the terror front. For a nation that experienced some fearsome terror attacks in past years, each quiet month is a sign of victory. So why has the threat dropped off so dramatically, Johnny? The reason isn't hard to recognize:Last September, Indonesian commandos blew away a Malaysian terrorist named Noordin Mohammed Top, who had a hand in every major Indonesian terror attack since the first Bali bombing of 2002. It says something that getting rid of a single terrorist kingpin could have such an impact on Indonesia's outlook. But it did. Noordin was the last of the Jemaah Islamiyah majors. The reason his demise was significant was that there now aren't any more of them left. That entire crop is either worm food or they've moved indoors for extended periods. That offers a reminder of what it takes to win a war on terror. Miranda warnings, civilian trials and shaking down blue-haired ladies at airports don't do it. Hunting and killing terrorists do. And leave us not forget good intel. You have to know who to hunt down and where to look... That's important because some analysts, such as Jakarta-based senior adviser Sidney Jones of Crisis Group International, have claimed Indonesia's progress is a result of turning the war on terror into a police action. She explained in a January interview with Voice of America that civilian trials helped win public trust. Sidney's a nice lady, but she's a touchy-feely sort from what I understand. She's not completely wrong, but to look at what Indonesia did suggests more of a militarization of its police forces than trust in the routine civilian mechanisms of police action. Indonesia treated terrorism with the urgency of warfare, even if its police took the lead. That was possible only because of strong leadership and big public backing. The leadership, recall, didn't come from the top down, which I consider damned significant. In October 2002 Indonesia was under the mushy hopey changey leadership of Megawati Sukarnoputri. Her vice president, the loathsome Hamzah Haz, was an Islamist who had spent the past year contemptuously pooh-poohing the idea of any kind of Islamic terror threat, hanging around with Abu Bakr Bashir and Jafar Umar Thalib. When the bad guyz detonated it was the guy who's the current president, then the relatively obscure Coordinating Minister of Political and Security Affairs in Mega's cabinet who took the ball and ran with it in spite of (not because of) the lacklusters at the top. Both reflect Indonesia's democracy and growing political freedom, which studies show repel terror. And no, the country didn't turn into a military state by treating terror as war. Indonesians set the actions into motion by electing a military man, Bambang Susilo Yudhoyono, as their president in 2004 and by reelecting him in 2009. The Indonesian general ran on a tough anti-terrorist platform and kept his word on that. I think he was elected because of his bulldog tenacity in hunting down Jemaah Islamiyah. Hamzah Haz ran in the 2004 election and came in dead last, with 3 percent of the vote. SBY followed his intel leads and he did as nice a job of network analysis as you could want to see. All of the JI members were neatly tied together, virtually all of them through blood or marriage relationships -- as we commented at the time, and they were all family. The entire threat to national security was shown to consist of about 60 people, maybe 70 or 75 by the time Noordin finally got done recruiting and burning new fodder. Sidney can say it was a "police problem," but from here it looked like it was solved as an intel problem.
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| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 I'll buy in when this guy's found in bed with his throat cut... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2010-02-20 13:19 |
| #2 Indonesia's progress is a result of turning the war on terror into a police action. If you have police that are happy to open up wth automatic weapons and grenade launchers. Otherwise Fred is right. A single network rolled up thru good intel. The interesting question is why didn't the network grow and spawn imitators (in Indonesia). |
| Posted by: phil_b 2010-02-20 05:03 |
| #1 *shrug* Some people just need killin'. |
| Posted by: crosspatch 2010-02-20 03:47 |