Refugee Review Tribunal AUSTRALIA RRT RESEARCH RESPONSE Research Response Number: IDN30273 Country: Indonesia Date: 6 July 2006 Keywords: IDN30273 – Indonesia – Bali – Nurdin Mohammed Top – State protection – Internal relocation This response was prepared by the Country Research Section of the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the RRT within time constraints. This response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. Questions 1. Please provide information about Nurdin’s group. Is it limited to Bali? 2. Please provide information as to whether the authorities protect the citizens of Bali/Indonesia. 3. Are there regions other than Bali within Indonesia to which a Hindu could relocate? 4. Any other relevant information. RESPONSE 1. Please provide information about Nurdin’s group. Is it limited to Bali? Networks associated with Noordin Mohammed Top are widely considered to be responsible for the October 2002 Bali suicide/car bomb attacks, the August 2003 bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, the September 2004 bombing of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, and the October 2005 triple suicide bomb attacks in Bali. An extensive report on Noordin’s networks was recently completed by the International Crisis Group (ICG) and, according to this report, the persons involved in Noordin’s activities have, for the most part, been based in Java (p.16) (the vicinity of Solo, in Central Java, has been of particular importance). The report also makes mention of Noordin affiliates operating out of numerous localities across Indonesia, including, for example, Surabaya, Semarang, Ungaran, Pasaruan, Pekalongan and Bangil, in Java; Bukittinggi, Bengkulu, Lampung and Riau, in Sumatra; and in the areas of Sulawesi, Poso and Ambon (and also, beyond Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia). The persons involved in the aforementioned attacks have principally been drawn from the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) organisation but have also involved, in more recent times, persons from related organisations such as Darul Islam and Kompak, with whom Noordin has either established a connection or who he has drawn into his own autonomous organisation, “al-Qaeda for the Malay Archipelago” (sometimes referred to as “the working group for the Malay archipelago of Tanzim Qoidatul Jihad, the formal name of al-Qaeda”) (pp.i, 1-2). Indonesian police have been conducting a major campaign against Noordin’s networks and this has resulted in the killing of a number of suspected members and the capture of others in raids across Java. The ICG now believe that “[t]he Indonesian police are closing in on Noordin” himself (p.i). According to this report: “Noordin [recently] eluded capture in Semarang. He has since been traced to Solo; Rengasdengklok and Krawang, West Java; Surabaya; and Wonosobo, Central Java” (p.18). Extracts from the report follow below. The Indonesian police are closing in on Noordin Mohammed Top, South East Asia’s most wanted terrorist. In a dramatic pre-dawn raid on 29 April 2006 in Wonosobo, Central Java, they shot and killed two members of his inner circle and arrested two others. If and when they capture Noordin, they will have put the person most determined to attack Western targets out of commission. …For four years Noordin has tapped into jihadist networks to build a following of diehard loyalists, and those same networks may be available to others. Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the region’s largest jihadist organisation, continues to provide the hard core of that following: the two killed in the Wonosobo raid were longstanding JI members, as was at least one of those arrested. But beginning in 2004, Noordin began reaching out to young men from other organisations and some with no previous organisational affiliation. Many JI members reportedly see the group he has cobbled together – he grandly calls it al- Qaeda for the Malay Archipelago – as a deviant splinter that has done great harm to the organisation they joined in the mid-1990s. Noordin, however, reportedly sees himself as leading JI’s military wing, even though he answers to no one. He justifies his actions by citing jihadist doctrine that under emergency conditions – for example if surrounded by the enemy – a group of two or three or even a single individual can take on the enemy without instructions from an imam. …For the Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta in August 2003, he used a small circle of Sumatra-based JI members who had either been associated with a JI school in Malaysia, Lukman al-Hakiem, or with its prototype, the al-Mukmin Islamic boarding school in Ngruki, near Solo, Central Java. For the Australian embassy bombing in September 2004, he relied on three networks: the East Java division of JI; alumni of JI schools in Central Java; and a West Javabased faction of an old insurgency, Darul Islam, whose members supplied the key operatives. While individuals from that Ring Banten faction had worked with JI before, military operations had never before been outsourced in this way. It was one indication that Noordin was working on his own. After the embassy bombing, Noordin was short of funds, weapons and experienced fighters. He turned to two men who had access to all these, neither of whom was JI. One was from a different Darul Islam faction with long experience in the Philippines; the other had been head of the Ambon office of the Islamic charity KOMPAK and could mobilise veterans of Indonesian communal conflicts. Intense negotiations followed with couriers used to relay messages between the bosses. It turned out that neither the Darul Islam nor the KOMPAK leader was interested in joining forces but both were arrested in mid-2005 and began to lose control over their followers, some of whom went over to Noordin. For the second Bali bombing in October 2005, Noordin relied on his inner circle, including the two who were killed on 29 April, to find and train new members. Recruitment appeared to be rather ad hoc, despite written materials attributed to Noordin suggesting a tightly organised cell structure designed to undertake military operations. Noordin has shown remarkable determination and capacity to plan operations even as he loses his closest colleagues to police dragnets and remains the target of Indonesia’s biggest ever manhunt. It is not clear who among potential successors could do as well. But his behaviour following Bali II suggests he is running short of money and experienced cadres. The loss on 29 April of the men who served as both couriers and recruiters has to be a significant blow. The Wonosobo raid was a triumph for the police, and Noordin’s arrest will be an even greater one. But the networks he drew on will survive as a potential source of recruits for future operations (International Crisis Group 2006, Terrorism in Indonesia: Noordin’s Networks, Asia Report no.114, 5 May, p. i http://www.crisisgroup.org/library/documents/asia/indonesia/114_terrorism_in_indonesia_no ordin_s_networks.pdf – Accessed 5 May 2006 – Attachment 1). The ICG does not refer to Bali as an area in which persons associated with Noordin reside or are based though it is obviously a theatre of operations for Noordin in terms of bombing attacks. According to the ICG, the staging area for the October 2005 Bali bombings was East Java and Noordin himself was in Samarang (p.18). Following the attacks Indonesian police arrested a number of persons in these areas in connection with the bombings. As plans for Bali II advanced, Noordin conducted training on the second floor of the “Selera” restaurant in Semarang for the three suicide bombers and Anif Solchanudin.69 Anif was originally to have been a fourth “bridegroom” – the code word for suicide bomber – but he was an Ambon veteran, and Azhari reportedly decided he was needed to train others. On 1 October, Salik Firdaus, Misro, and Aip Hidayat strolled into three cafes in Bali and blew themselves up, killing another twenty in the process. From a base in East Java, Azhari seems to have supervised construction of the bombing backpacks, while Noordin stayed in Semarang. Over the next few weeks, Subur led a short military training course for five members of the group on the slopes of Mount Unggaran, just south of Semarang; all of the participants paid their own way. On 9 November, police arrested Cholily in Semarang as he was bringing an Azhari-made bomb from Malang for Noordin via Tedi, a member of the Semarang group who is still at large. From Cholily police learned of Azhari’s hideout in Batu, Malang, and immediately surrounded it. During the ensuing gunbattle, Azhari was killed; Arman blew himself up (International Crisis Group 2006, Terrorism in Indonesia: Noordin’s Networks, Asia Report no.114, 5 May, p.18 http://www.crisisgroup.org/library/documents/asia/indonesia/114_terrorism_in_indonesia_no ordin_s_networks.pdf – Accessed 5 May 2006 – Attachment 1). In the aftermath of the October 2005 bombings it was argued by a number of commentators, including the ICG’s Sidney Jones and B.Raman of the South Asia Analysis Group (SAAG), that Bali had again been selected by Noordin for attack because of the abundance of western tourists and because of the scarcity of Muslims in this predominantly Hindu region. Both analysts have argued that western tourists were the targets and that Balinese Hindus were seen by the attackers as being more acceptable as incidental casualties than the Javanese Muslims who had died as a consequence of bombings in Jakarta. Relevant extracts follow on the views of Sidney Jones and B.Raman in this regard: The view of the ICG’s Sidney Jones: The bombers may have returned to predominantly Hindu Bali because they can maximise damage to foreign victims while minimising harm to Muslims, says Sidney Jones, an expert on Muslim extremism at the International Crisis Group, an international think-tank (Kearney, M.