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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 10:52 pm
Time: 10:52 pm
Results for terrorism (indonesia)
2 results foundAuthor: Title: Indonesian Jihadism: Small Groups, Big Plans Summary: Violent extremism in Indonesia increasingly is taking the form of small groups acting independently of large jihadi organisations but sometimes encouraged by them. This is in part a response to effective law enforcement that has resulted in widespread arrests and structural weakening of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), Jama’ah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT) and other organisations accused of links to terrorism. But it is also the result of ideological shifts that favour “individual” over “organisational” jihad and low-cost, smallscale targeted killings over mass casualty attacks that inadvertently kill Muslims. The suicide bombing inside a police station mosque on 15 April 2011 and a spate of letter bombs delivered in Jakarta in mid-March are emblematic of the shift. The government needs urgently to develop prevention strategies to reduce the likelihood that more such groups will emerge. Unlike the small group proponents, advocates of “organisational” jihad believe that nothing can be accomplished without a large organisation and a strong leader, but if the ultimate goal is an Islamic state, then it is imperative to build public support. Rather than engage in violence, groups like JI and JAT are focused for the moment on building up a mass base, by finding issues that resonate with their target audience. Increasingly this means a greater focus on local rather than foreign “enemies”, with officials who are seen as oppressors, particularly the police; Christians; and members of the Ahmadiyah sect topping the list. It also means a greater willingness than in the past to join coalitions with non-jihadi groups. The two strands of jihadism are complementary. The larger organisations can fund the religious outreach that attracts potential recruits for the small groups. They can also provide the translators and distributors for material downloaded from extremist websites in Arabic or English that buttress the small group approach. They can maintain plausible deniability for acts of violence while trying to rebuild their ranks, while at the same time providing the cover under which small groups emerge. The report looks at detailed case studies of small violent groups that have emerged in Indonesia in 2009 and 2010 in Medan and Lampung, on Sumatra, and in Bandung and Klaten, on Java. All involved at least one former prisoner; three of the four had links to JAT but operated independently of JAT control. Three of the four also involved mosque-based study groups that evolved into hit squads, and all were committed to the idea of ightiyalat, secret assassinations. In none of them was poverty a significant driver of radicalisation. Information about these groups is only available because their members were caught. This raises the question of how many similar small groups operating under police radar exist across Indonesia that will only come to light when one of their murderous attempts succeeds. Prevention strategies that go beyond law enforcement are critical, and the new National Anti-Terrorism Agency (Badan Nasional Penanggulangan Terorisme, BNPT) has an important role to play in designing and testing them. All such strategies, however, must be based on wellgrounded research and informed by serious study of what has and has not worked elsewhere. Details: Jakarta/Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2011. 32p. Source: Internet Resource: Asia Report No. 204: Accessed April 20, 2011 at: http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/asia/south-east-asia/indonesia/204%20Indonesian%20Jihadism%20%20Small%20Groups%20Big%20Plans.ashx Year: 2011 Country: Indonesia URL: http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/asia/south-east-asia/indonesia/204%20Indonesian%20Jihadism%20%20Small%20Groups%20Big%20Plans.ashx Shelf Number: 121409 Keywords: Extremist GroupsTerrorism (Indonesia)Violence |
Author: Title: Indonesia: From Vigilantism to Terrorism in Cirebon Summary: Involvement in violent campaigns against vice and religious deviance has become one pathway to terrorism in Indonesia. "Indonesia: From Vigilantism to Terrorism in Cirebon," the latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, examines the radicalisation of a group from Cirebon, West Java that was behind the 2011 suicide bombings of a mosque and a church. It argues that ideological and tactical lines within the radical community are blurring, making it harder to distinguish “terrorists” from hardline activists and religious vigilantes. “The Cirebon men moved from using sticks and stones in the name of upholding morality and curbing ‘deviance’ to using bombs and guns, and this may become the common pattern”, says Sidney Jones, Crisis Group Senior Adviser. Poorly educated and underemployed, the Cirebon men represent a generational shift from the jihadists trained abroad or those who fought a decade ago in two major communal conflicts in Ambon and Poso. They were radicalised through attending public lectures by radical clerics; most had taken part as well in attacks on stores selling liquor and anti-Ahmadiyah activities. They had been members of Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT), an extremist organisation founded by well-known cleric Abu Bakar Ba’asyir in 2008, but then left to form their even more militant group. The two suicide bombers, Mohamed Syarif, who blew himself up at a Cirebon mosque on 15 April 2011, and Ahmed Yosefa Hayat, who died in an attack on a church in Solo, Central Java on 25 September, taught themselves bomb-making from the Internet and worked on their own. The others preferred targeted assassinations to suicide attacks and learned bomb-making from friends in a Solo-based group of vigilantes-turned-bombers. The briefing notes that the merging of vigilantes and jihadists has been facilitated by the proliferation of Islamist civil society organisations and the popularity of public taklim (religious lectures), as forums for spreading radical views. The government needs a strategy, consistent with democratic values, to counter clerics who use no violence themselves but preach that it is permissible to shed the blood of infidels (kafir) or tyrants (thaghut), frequently meaning Indonesian officials and, especially, the police. The problem is that there is no agreement within the country’s political elite on the nature of the threat. If the radicalisation of groups like the Cirebon men is to be halted, the government needs to build a national consensus on what constitutes extremism; directly confront hate speech; and promote zero tolerance of religiously-inspired crimes, however minor, including in the course of anti-vice campaigns. “Expressions of shock and horror every time there is an incident of religiously-motivated violence as in Cirebon or Solo are not a substitute for prevention”, says Jim Della-Giacoma, Crisis Group’s South East Asia Project Director. Details: Brussels, Belgium: International Crisis Group, 2012. 16p. Source: Update Briefing, Asia Briefing No. 132: Internet Resource: Accessed on January 28, 2012 at http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/asia/south-east-asia/indonesia/B132%20Indonesia%20-%20From%20Vigilantism%20to%20Terrorism%20in%20Cirebon.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Indonesia URL: http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/asia/south-east-asia/indonesia/B132%20Indonesia%20-%20From%20Vigilantism%20to%20Terrorism%20in%20Cirebon.pdf Shelf Number: 123846 Keywords: Extremist GroupsJihadismMale OffendersSuicide BombingsTerrorism (Indonesia)Vigilantism |