Indonesian jihadis could be strengthened by return of Isis fighters, analyst warns
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Version 0 of 1. Indonesia’s jihadi movements could be galvanised by the return of up to 200 Indonesians currently fighting with Islamic State (Isis) and other militant groups, a leading analyst has said. If fighters were to return from Syria with combat experience and increased legitimacy, it could give local terrorist groups “a real oomph”, the director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, Sidney Jones, told the Lowy Institute on Tuesday. Terrorist groups are currently splintered and weaker than at any time since the 2002 Bali bombings, she said. The 1998 downfall of the Suharto regime followed by the attacks on nightclubs that killed 202 people were “the peak of the strength of terrorist organisations in the region”, Jones said. “They really believed the Bali bombings with the political upheaval that had taken place would bring about a religious revolution in Indonesia.” Instead the attack led to a government crackdown and the creation of an effective police counter-terrorism unit, Detachment 88, which steadily saw Indonesian jihadi groups splinter and their recruitment rates dive. Indonesians began travelling to Syria to fight in mid-2013, the former International Crisis Group analyst said, and their numbers have increased rapidly since Islamic State declared its caliphate in July 2014. There are 127 confirmed cases of Indonesians fighting in the region but numbers could be as high as 200, Jones said. “But there’s a long waiting list of people who want to go there.” Fighters wishing to join Isis or the al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra need to win the approval of an Indonesia-based “selection committee”. Initially it was young men who were travelling to the region, enticed by promises of furnished apartments, monthly stipends and training with advanced weaponry. But more recently entire families were crossing the border from Turkey. She stressed it was a “tiny fringe of a fringe of a fringe” who were joining the fight, and that even within Indonesian Salafi jihadist circles Isis was “deeply divisive”. There was at least one known Isis company of Indonesians and Malaysians, which numbered about 100 fighters, who talked about creating a south-east Asian Islamic state. “There’s no prayer of it happening, but that’s the goal,” she said. However, the influence of the brutal conflict was already being felt in the style of attacks launched by domestic groups, including an attempted chlorine gas attack on a Muslim shopping mall last year. “The idea that they could use chlorine clearly comes from the Syrian conflict,” she said. |