IF the latest Bali atrocities turn out to be the handiwork of Jemaah Islamiah - which at this stage appears to be the most likely suspect - then they prove a powerful point.
It is far too early to write off JI or to assert, as former foreign minister and president of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group Gareth Evans did just six days ago, that the organisation has been "effectively smashed" and no longer poses a serious threat to Australia or Australian interests.
In the three years since the October 2002 Bali bombings, JI's activities have been severely disrupted by the investigations mounted by the Indonesian police, ably assisted by the Australian Federal Police. The group's infrastructure, leadership, command hierarchy and freedom to meet and plan operations have been curtailed.
JI probably no longer functions as the sophisticated and highly regimented organisation it once was. However it still retains a deadly capacity to kill and maim, thanks to a number of factors. These are the haphazard nature of the crackdown in Indonesia; the fact that key individuals involved in planning and executing bombings are still at large; the long and rich history of the Indonesian Islamist movement that spawned JI; and its proven ability to continue its training, find new recruits and draw on a wide network of like-minded groups and individuals.
Disturbingly, JI has still not been outlawed in Indonesia and even the country's highly regarded president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, continues to maintain the nonsensical fiction that there is no such thing as JI. "Actually there is no formal organisation called JI in Indonesia," the president recently asserted. "We cannot dismiss an organisation that does not exist formally."
Despite the lack of will to take on JI politically, the police investigation into the bombings it has perpetrated has been resolute, resulting in well over 200 arrests and dozens of convictions. However the number arrested represents only a small proportion of JI's known membership. The best estimate I have seen of this is contained in an internal JI document from about 1999, which stated that at that time the group had "more than 2000 members and 5000 trainees".
For all its successes, the police investigation has also been marred by tragic blunders. On three separate occasions the Indonesian police have narrowly failed to capture JI's bomb-master Azahari bin Husin, the Australian-educated PhD professor who built the bombs that destroyed the Sari Club and Paddy's bar in 2002 and damaged the Marriott Hotel and Australian embassy in Jakarta. On one occasion police arrested a JI suspect driving a motorbike, but let his pillion passenger go -- only to learn later that the passenger had been Azahari. Another time the police were about to raid a house in the city of Bandung where Azahari was staying; the raid was inexplicably delayed while news was leaked to the media. By the time the police arrived Azahari had fled. On the most recent occasion, Azahari was fleeing in the aftermath of the embassy bombing when he was stopped by a traffic policeman in Jakarta; he reportedly paid off the cop and was allowed to leave.
Azahari and his right-hand man Noordin Mohammed Top, were last sighted in Jakarta in the wake of the embassy bombing, when they told a group of their helpers "God willing, we still have other targets in Jakarta."
In June this year Indonesian intelligence advised the Australian embassy it that had uncovered a new plan to bomb Western hotels in the capital, prompting a new travel advisory from DFAT: "We continue to receive a stream of credible reporting suggesting that terrorists are in the very advanced stages of planning attacks."
Other equally dangerous JI commanders and operatives are still at large. Among them is the al-Qai'da-trained bomb specialist Dulmatin, who helped Azahari in Bali in October 2002. Another is the Afghanistan veteran, Zulkarnaen, who heads JI's military wing and established a new JI special squad in 2003 to carry out bombings in Jakarta.
At last report, Dulmatin was on the run in the southern Philippines, providing training and assistance to the country's Abu Sayyaf rebels. According to Australian intelligence, JI and the Abu Sayyaf have forged a new strategic alliance, under which the Abu Sayyaf provides protection and assistance for JI in its Philippines stronghold. In return JI supplies bomb-making expertise and training.
JI has unquestionably retained its ability to train its fighters, recruit new foot soldiers and tap into a wide range of fellow jihadist groups that share its beliefs and aspirations.
JI currently conducts its training at a camp called Jabal Qubah on the southern Philippines island of Mindanao, where it provides a variety of training programs including an "officer training course", which runs over 18 months and takes 15 to 20 trainees at a time.
A JI instructor named Rohmat, who was arrested in March 2005, told Philippines authorities he had just graduated 23 recruits from one of these courses. A senior Australian counter-terrorism official told me in July this year that the JI training program now includes a specific course in suicide bombing, including driving skills and bomb detonation.
Despite assurances to the contrary, JI has also continued training in Indonesia. The group that helped Azahari and Top to bomb the Australian embassy held training camps in West Java in 2003 and 2004. According to a key operative named Rois, who was recently sentenced to death for the embassy bombing, one purpose of this training was to "select martyrs" for suicide bombing operations.
Indonesia's extreme Islamic schools continue to provide a fertile recruiting ground for JI. Approximately 20 to 30 such schools espouse the same virulent anti-Western ideology propounded by JI. The largest of these is the JI leader's Abu Bakar Bashir's Ngruki school in Solo. At last report, 2000 students were being indoctrinated there in Bashir's rigid and hate-filled views. The school is currently run by Bashir's son, Abdul Rohim, who was identified by the Australian JI member Jack Roche as a "go-between between al-Qai'da and JI". Abdul Rohim previously headed a Karachi-based JI cell known as Al Ghuraba, meaning "the foreigners", which was set up to groom and train a new generation of JI leaders.
Another key factor behind JI's resilience is its long and rich history, which dates back to an Islamic rebellion that grew up in Indonesia in the 1940s under the banner of Darul Islam, or "Abode of Islam". The rebellion achieved victory in 1949, when its leader declared his own Islamic State of Indonesia, centred on West Java. This self-proclaimed state survived for 13 years with a 12,000-man army and its own police, tax collectors and civil administration. The rebellion spread to Aceh, south Sulawesi and central Jakarta, provoking violent conflict in which 20,000 people died.
The rebellion was finally crushed in 1962 when its leader was captured and executed. But the dream of restoring Indonesia's short-lived Islamic state has lived on among the adherents of Darul Islam and its offshoot, JI.
The Darul Islam movement has flourished ever since, spawning numerous other jihadist groups, including JI. Many of the men arrested in Indonesia in the past three years have been the sons and grandsons of Darul Islam veterans, whose fathers and grandfathers fought and died for the cause.
It's a time-honoured and glorious tradition -- and a long-term proposition. A cache of JI documents seized in the aftermath of the first Bali bombings included a 25-year plan for the future of JI. In the three years since Bali, JI has evolved from a sophisticated, highly disciplined organisation into what one veteran intelligence analyst in Canberra describes as a "network of networks", able to tap into and a draw on a wealth of support from sympathetic individuals and groups. Its evolution has replicated that of its mentor organisation, al-Qa'ida, which -- after the destruction of its bases in Afghanistan after 9/11 -- decentralised and globalised, making it even harder to pin down and defeat.
According one senior intelligence analyst who specialises in Indonesia, "the fact that JI has been able to replace senior commanders suggests its organisation heart is still intact." Australian intelligence knows that JI still manages to hold meetings, to source explosives, to find people to provide shelter and financial support. In the words of another top counter-terrorism official, it still constitutes "a formidable enemy".
I recently asked two terrorism experts how they believed JI would rate its own success. "JI is adapting to changing circumstances," one said. "There's no evidence they're giving up. They've settled in for the long haul on this. If they only perpetrate one outrage every two years then they believe they're winning".
The senior counter-terrorism official concurred: "JI would consider its relationship with al-Qa'ida and its role in the global jihad and would gauge its success as fairly high. They believe it's just the very first stage in a decades-long global struggle. They're quite prepared to be doing this for years - they expect their great, great grandchildren to still be fighting this fight." |
A spokesman for the Bashir-founded Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia, or Indonesian Council of Holy Warriors, said the elderly cleric, jailed in March for conspiracy in the 2002 Bali bombings, appeared to one of the few prisoners to miss out. "We deplore the Australian regime which is clearly intervening in his judicial process," the MMI's Fauzan al-Anshari told AAP. "But Ustadz (honoured cleric) Abu told me he accepts the decision with an open heart. Hopefully there is a blessing in disguise from Allah." 
The Islamic school in