The Jemaah Islamiah group blamed for the Bali bombings is far bigger than previously thought and is now producing a new generation of Islamic warriors from the children of its members, an in-depth study reveals.
| That would be all the kiddies in the madrassahs, of course. Shoulda shut them down when they started rounding up the boom artists... |
While police have arrested about 90 JI members in Indonesia, and another 120 in Malaysia and Singapore, the terrorist organisation is replenishing its ranks with young "jihadists", according to the report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG). These young recruits are now enrolled in a group of Indonesian Islamic boarding schools, spread across the archipelago. In addition, serious doubts are raised about the prospects of containing JI’s terrorist activities because of its extensive links with at least five other organisations that co-operate and share common ideology.
| It's not the tumor that kills you, it's the disease... |
The report warns that JI is "far from destroyed", with a network now extending "far beyond its formal members . . . a JI member can work with another organisation with the approval of his mantiqi [regional] or wakalah [district] leader". An example of how JI co-operates with other groups is provided by the bombing of a McDonald’s restaurant and a car showroom in Makassar in Sulawesi. Less than two months after the Bali attacks, the bombings were originally thought to have been carried out by JI, but turned out to be the work of two South Sulawesi-based organisations, Wahdah Islamiah and Laskar Jundullah. These organisations "co-operated with JI and may even have been modelled after it, but were completely independent in terms of leadership. The Makassar bombings appear to have been conducted without much, if any, consultation with JI leadership."
| Not that they would have turned them down — but this way it didn't cost them anything... |
The report is the latest in a series produced by the ICG’s Indonesia director, Sidney Jones, who has spent most of her life studying radical Islam in Indonesia, where she lives.
The full report is available here
Critical in helping JI to survive is a group of Islamic boarding schools, or pesantren, which have harboured JI members on the run from police and which have some sympathy to the aims of JI to create an Islamic state in South-East Asia. Although the Indonesian Government has ruled out following Malaysia’s example by closing down some of these schools, the report says this relative handful out of Indonesia’s 14,000 pesantren are one way JI is replenishing its ranks. Some of these prestige schools form an "Ivy League" where JI members send their own children. Of these, the al-Mukmin school at Ngruki, in Central Java, founded by Abu Bakar Bashir — the man accused of being JI’s spiritual leader — is the best known. But there are at least three others in this group, including the al-Islam pesantren in East Java founded by the brothers of Amrozi, who has been sentenced to death for the Bali bombings. In Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, a school called Hidayatullah has a network of 127 schools "several of which became places of shelter or transit for JI members at different times". The Bali bomb accused Ali Imron is one of three JI members to have used these schools to avoid arrest.
| This is identical behavior to the Pak madrassahs. When Binny finally buys his farm, it'll probably be in a shootout at a madrassah... |
Another key feature helping JI survive is a web of marriage alliances, often organised by senior JI members, that means the organisation can resemble a "giant extended family", the report says. "In some cases, JI leaders appear to have arranged marriages for their subordinates to serve the interests of their organisation", with the reliability of the wife apparently a criterion for JI membership. The report cites the marriage of the alleged operational commander of the Bali bombings, Mukhlas, as an example of how JI uses marriage to grow.
The same phenomenon is to be seen in Pakland. Part of it's the "family business" end, and part of it's dynastic marriage. Hambali, by the way, is reported to have a Pak wife, in Quetta. I don't know which religious crime lord holy man she's related to by blood... And I think we've already touched on the Soddies' habit of marrying close relatives... |
While JI has undoubted links with the terrorist group al-Qaeda, the report says the relationship "may be less one of subservience . . . than of mutual advantage and reciprocal assistance". Although al-Qaeda may help fund specific programs, it "neither directs nor controls it", the report concludes.
Rather that just an "Al-Qaeda affiliate", JI is a highly organised, professional and lethal group in it’s own right |