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| Southeast Asia |
| Jones on the JI schism |
| 2006-01-06 |
| I agree with Jones's basic thesis, but I think that she's got to be talking about the number hard-core full-time JI members rather than all of the cannon fodder. Terror group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) is divided between a few dozen militants involved in bombings, and a larger "mainstream" group of up to 1,000 people who pose a long-term threat to Indonesia as their leaders try to regroup. This analysis by Ms Sidney Jones, one of the world's leading experts on the extremist group, indicates that different tactics and goals exist within the organisation amid intense pressure from law enforcement authorities. At a forum here sponsored by the Institute of South-east Asian Studies yesterday, she said JI militants involved in bomb plots number up to 50, and are divided into cells of five to 10 people. The larger group is not involved in bombings, but continues to conduct military training for members, and is suspected of carrying out robberies to raise funds. Ms Jones, project director for the International Crisis Group in Jakarta, said JI's bombing faction had considered kidnapping to raise funds from ransoms or as a form of terror. Key JI man Noordin Moh Top had ordered a survey of possible kidnapping attempts or attacks on Americans working at an electrical plant, a synagogue in Surabaya and an ethnic Chinese business owner. But no attacks were carried out, apparently because of police pressure, she said. The mainstream did not share the bombing faction's tactic of terrorising the United States and its allies with indiscriminate bombing, and its main goal was the establishment of an Islamic state in Indonesia, she noted. But while mainstream JI leaders distance themselves from the bombings, she said, some rank-and-file members could be supporting the more violent faction. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |