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Jemaah Islamiya rebounds in its fight to establish an Asian Islamic caliphate

In our ongoing series of articles designed to raise awareness of the dangers we face from terrorism, especially from Islamist terrorism, it is timely in this article, given that this month is an anniversary the Bali bombings perpetrated by Jemaah Islamiya, to look closely at this Indonesian-based Islamist terrorist group.

The references listed at the end of this article, such as the US Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report on “Terrorism in Southeast Asia”, together with the papers by MacDonald & Lemco, Acharya & Acharya, and Abuza, all contain excellent background on Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and its goals and strategies.

It is interesting in Australia to read in these papers the American perspective, which views Southeast Asia as the “second front in the war on terror”, which, as Acharya & Acharya validly point out, actually is for Australia the “first front” in this war and one which we have lived with in various forms since the 1950s, given our proximity to Indonesia and our colonial-era and post-colonial-era involvement in the Southeast Asian region generally. Accordingly, for us here in Australia, it is critical to maintain a close counterterrorism focus on JI and militant Islamism generally throughout the region, including also within Australia itself (not least because we have a growing Islamic population within Australia, of approximately 300,000 Muslims, and cells of the various Asian Islamist groups, including JI and Hizbut Tahrir, operating here, both known and unknown).

What are JI’s goals?

It is not well appreciated by Australians that JI’s core goal is the establishment of an Islamic state in Southeast Asia, based on fundamentalist principles of Sharia Law, and centred on Indonesia (CRS Report), ultimately growing to unify Muslims in Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines as well (Acharya & Acharya). A corollary of this core goal is the overthrow of the traditionally secular democratic or authoritarian governments throughout the region in order to pave the way for their pan-Islamic Sharia Law regional caliphate.

JI’s strategies for achieving this goal have been primarily as follows:

• Establish radical Islamist Madrasas throughout Indonesia, masquerading as boarding schools, where students can be trained in radical Islamist teachings based on the Saudi Arabian Wahhabist ideology, and thus create an “alumni” of terrorist operatives – this process was commenced by JI founders Baasyir and Sungkar as far back as the 1970s in Solo on the main island of Java (CRE Report, p. 6);
• Form alliances with other militant Islamist groups in the region and with Al Qaeda, “to share resources for training, arms procurement, financial assistance and to promote carrying out attacks” (CRE Report, p. 5);
• Spend time initially, patiently building up, before their first attacks in 2000, during the period of 1993-2000, their network, systems and structures (including finances and front companies), and recruiting and training members in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, or MILF camps in Mindanao in the Philippines (Abuza, p. 172);
• Recruit cell members – note that Abuza (p. 173) observes that “one of JI’s most impressive aspects is its ability to recruit across the board, irrespective of education or class” and that “while many of its leading operatives have been madrasa graduates, JI has also been able to recruit middle-class, western educated professionals … [including] officers in the Malaysian armed forces, businessmen and university lecturers … [as well as] young technical students and disenfranchised youth with little prospects … [who are] young, angry, anti-Western, and technically savvy”;
• Setting up a formal command structure, including spiritual leaders and various secretaries and committees responsible variously for “missionary work, military missions, security, and finance … as well as four regional commands” covering (1) Malaysian peninsula, Singapore, Thailand, (2) Java and Sumatra, (3) the Philippines, Brunei, eastern Malaysia, Kalimantan and Sulawesi, and (4) Australia and West Irian (Papua) – Abuza, p. 172;
• Exploit the fundamentally lax nature of border controls and financial controls throughout Southeast Asia to its advantage in terms of moving cell members, arms and finance around the region, as well as exploiting the primarily “weak states” form of governments in the region, especially in Indonesia and Thailand, which are characterised by “weak political institutions, decentralised politics, inadequate resources and endemic corruption”, and their unwillingness to come to terms with militant Islam for fear of alienating the various Muslims groups within their countries (Abuza, and CRE Report);
• Attack both “soft” targets (Western tourist and business venues, such as the Bali bombings in 2004/5 and the Jakarta Marriott in 2003) and “hard” targets (the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in 2004, and the attempted bombings of the US Embassy in Bangkok and the various American, Australia, British and Israeli installations in Singapore in 2000, including plans noted by MacDonald & Lemco, p. 391, to attack Singapore’s airport, defence ministry and water pipelines in the hope of igniting a holy war in Southeast Asia) – note that the CRE Report (p. 11) quotes the FBI as reporting that in 2002 there seemed to be a shift in orientation by JI towards a preference for attacking “soft” targets such as tourist venues;

In addition, as to strategy, it is interesting that the CRE Report notes (p. 10) that there have been two opposing factions within JI, the first, a minority group led by Hambali, which is focused on a broader anti-Western agenda similar to al Qaeda throughout the Southeast Asian region, and an opposing majority faction which “sees these tactics as undermining its preferred longer-term strategy of building up military capacity and using religious proselytisation to create a mass base sufficient to support an Islamic revolution”.

Further, Acharya & Acharya very interestingly note (p. 79) that within JI recently there has emerged evidence of a decline in support for the violent, pro-bombing faction, in favour of a “mainstream faction that advocates an open socialisation process leading to the implementation of Sharia and the creation of an Islamic state”. If this is the case, I would regard it as particularly worrisome, since, like Hizbut Tahrir here in Australia, the cloaking of Islamist fundamentalist ideology and the goal of implementing Sharia Law together under a guise of seemingly beguiling, non-violent, rational debate as to a “political solution” can have a much greater and more subtly dangerous appeal to Muslims, and potentially garner much greater support for their goals (since the lack of violence has the benefit for them of not alienating moderate Muslims).

This is especially worrying here in Australia, because Hizbut Tahrir held a major international Muslim conference in Sydney several months ago, preaching the desirability of ending Australian democracy and establishing a full Sharia regime here in Australia (on the basis that the global financial crisis has shown that democracy and capitalism no longer works).

Indeed, the real problem for the few truly secular Western-style states within Southeast Asia (essentially Singapore, Australia and New Zealand) is well articulated by the Singaporean counterterrorist official quoted by Acharya & Acharya (p. 80) as saying “it may not be politically correct to focus on the relationship between Islam and terrorism. However … what [JI members] were … taught was that to be a good, genuine Muslim, you would have to hate the West, bring down secular, pro-Western governments in the region, and pave the way for an Islamic regional government”.

Accordingly, it is clear that any orientation towards political proselytising will merely be a ruse and a cover for JI’s real agenda of introducing the usually violent, intolerant and restrictive Sharia Law state as is seen elsewhere within the Arab world all too often.

This is as deeply concerning for Australia as it is for Singapore, and we must clearly structure our counterterrorism policies to squarely face this issue and problem head on (particularly the dual problems of multiculturalism and political correctness).

How resilient is JI?

Acharya & Acharya, in their 2007 article (p. 78), state that, following the Bali and Marriott bombings, “JI is now fragmented, its original structure destroyed, and its leadership decimated and left disorientated”, but they conclude by noting that it would be premature to write it off because “JI appears to be resilient, highly flexible, and indefatigable … capable of implementing rapid leadership transitions and fundamental structural changes as part of its regeneration”.

On the basis of anecdotal evidence here in Australia, and confirmed by Abuza’s article in Middle East Quarterly from 2009, Acharya & Acharya’s conclusion would seem to be correct.

For example, Abuza notes (p. 2) that although Indonesian security forces, after the Bali bombings in 2002, “arrested more than 450 JI members, prosecuted over 250 terrorists and eviscerated the organisation’s regional cell system … victory was not complete … [with] more than a dozen hardened JI leaders [still] at large”; in addition, Abuza notes that of those JI members remaining at large, several have significant organisational, technical and military capabilities, and that raids in June 2008 have netted large caches of bombs and bomb-making material, “suggesting that JI’s commitment to terrorism remains high”.

Abuza also notes that today, JI is rebounding from these arrests by pursuing a three-front strategy of recruitment and expansion of cells, religious indoctrination and training of its members, and instigation of sectarian conflict (with this last component being especially insidious, being designed to foment the feeling that the Indonesian government has abdicated its responsibility to come to the defence of the Muslim community, and so aims to create increased popular Muslim support for JI).

Further, Abuza points out that, as part of this rebound, JI has now embraced the Hezbollah model of “soft power” through using a broad range of charities and NGOs to serve as cover for its terrorist and Islamist supremacist goals. These cover groups include organisations such as (pp. 3-6):

• the Majelis Mujahadin Indonesia, an umbrella organisation committed to transforming Indonesia into an Islamic state, which “has to some extent become JI’s equivalent of Sinn Fein” (in the sense of being the political party created to mirror the terrorist aims of JI, as Sinn Fein politically mirrored the IRA);
• Indonesian Islamic charities affiliated with Saudi charities, and well known to be financiers of terrorism, such as KOMPAK and the Medical Emergency Relief Charity, both of which were used deftly by JI during the aftermath of the 2004 Tsunami to increase its political legitimacy under the guise of a “compassionate” Muslim charitable relief organisation, in the same way that Hezbollah and Hamas conduct “humanitarian” relief works in the Middle East.

As Abuza bluntly states, JI’s “engagement in the political process is a cynical short-term tactic in its longer-term strategy to eradicate democracy”, with JI’s leader Ba’asyir being quoted as saying “the democratic system is not the Islamic way”, preferring instead, what he describes as “an Allahcracy”, and actually publicly urging his followers at a Mosque in 2006 in Kediri, East Java, “to wage jihad” (pp. 4-5).

Abuza is absolutely correct when he concludes (p. 3) that the regrouping and rebuilding of JI is a classic example of the typical Islamist group which “shows no intention of abandoning its core ideology even as some Indonesian officials wishfully see moderation where none exists”, and as such, serves as a perfect example of how “al-Qaeda affiliates, beaten back by successful counter-terror strategies, regroup using both the democratic process they simultaneously fight and the legitimacy naively bestowed by the international community on any organisation that calls itself an NGO”.

This is precisely the nub of the problem, and means that, like all Islamist groups, they are notoriously difficult to eradicate unless we are completely unyielding against them, and totally committed to stamping them out at all costs (militarily, politically and financially) – something that governments in Muslim nations usually lack the political courage to do, which therefore continues to allow this virulent religious/cultural disorder to flourish.

Accordingly, we can conclude unequivocally that JI is, like most Islamist groups faced with weakness, neither on the run nor on the ropes, and is in fact on the rise, and well and truly in the ring. And this, for those of us who are based in Australia, so close to the most populous Muslim nation in the world, is a worrying and unacceptable position.

References:

Bruce Vaughn et al., Terrorism in Southeast Asia, Congressional Research Service, (Order Code RL31672), February 2005, p. 1-34, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RL31672.pdf. *Public Site

Zachary Abuza “Jemaah Islamiyah Adopts the Hezbollah Model” Middle East Quarterly (Winter 2009).

Zachary Abuza, “Learning by Doing: Al Qaeda’s Allies in Southeast Asia,” Current History, April 2004, p. 171-76.

Scott B. MacDonald and Jonathan Lemco. “Political Islam in Southeast Asia,” Current History, November 2002, p. 388-92.

Amitav Acharya and Arabinda Acharya “The Myth of the Second Front: Localising the ‘War on Terror’ in Southeast Asia” Washington Quarterly (Autumn 2007). *Public Site

Joshua Kurlantzick, “Fear Moves East: Terror Targets the Pacific Rim,” Washington Quarterly, Volume 24, Number 1, Winter 2001, p. 19-29.

Steve Barber, based on the Sunshine Coast, has more than 25 years’ experience internationally in law, finance, operational risk management and counterterrorism issues. He is an active member of the Liberal National Party’s Policy Standing Committee and the Chairman of the LNP’s Federal Trade & Resources Policy Committee. The views expressed here are his own and not necessarily those of the LNP or part of the LNP’s policy platform. Steve can be reached by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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