INDONESIA: JIHADI SURPRISE IN ACEH Asia Report N°189 – 20 April 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS................................................. i I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 1 II. BRINGING JIHADIS TOGETHER ............................................................................... 3 A. DULMATIN...................................................................................................................................3 B. RING BANTEN..............................................................................................................................4 C. AMAN ABDURRAHMAN................................................................................................................5 D. YUDI AND SOFYAN ......................................................................................................................6 E. ACEH AS THE SECURE BASE.........................................................................................................7 III. PLANS FOR ACEH .......................................................................................................... 9 A. MILITARY TRAINING....................................................................................................................9 B. THE EFFORT TO WOO TGK. MUSLIM ATTAHIRI..........................................................................10 C. SETTING UP THE CAMP...............................................................................................................10 IV. THE BREAKUP OF THE GROUP............................................................................... 12 V. THE CURRENT STATE OF JIHADISM .................................................................... 13 VI. LESSONS LEARNED..................................................................................................... 15 APPENDICES A. MAP OF ACEH..................................................................................................................................18 B. LIST OF INDIVIDUALS ARRESTED, KILLED OR WANTED ...................................................................19 C. ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP ....................................................................................23 D. CRISIS GROUP REPORTS AND BRIEFINGS ON ASIA SINCE 2007.........................................................24 E. CRISIS GROUP BOARD OF TRUSTEES................................................................................................26 Asia Report N°189 20 April 2010 INDONESIA: JIHADI SURPRISE IN ACEH EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS The discovery in late February 2010 of a jihadi training One of Aman’s followers, through prison visits, had ties camp in Aceh came as a surprise in three ways. It re- to some of Dulmatin’s closest associates – JI members vealed a major mutation in Indonesian jihadi ranks: a who had joined Noordin, and men from another jihadi new coalition had emerged that rejected both Jemaah organisation called KOMPAK who had trained in Islamiyah (JI), the best-known such organisation in the Mindanao. He also had ties to Aceh, having once been region, and the more violent splinter group led until his stationed with the police there, and it was he who sug- death in September 2009 by Noordin Top. It had chosen gested that Aceh could be the secure base. Another Aceh as a base, despite the antipathy of Acehnese to radi- Acehnese member of Aman’s study group recruited about cal Islam. And it was led by Dulmatin, one of South East twenty Acehnese, hoping they would bring in others; most Asia’s most wanted terrorists, whom officials in both were local followers of a well-known salafi cleric in Aceh Indonesia and the Philippines believed was in Mindanao. Besar district. The man the jihadis wanted badly to re- cruit, however, was an Acehnese cleric with a proven By mid-April police had arrested 48 coalition members, track record of mobilising mass demonstrations in support killed eight, including Dulmatin, and were looking for of Islamic law and sending his students out on vigilante about fifteen others. The group’s existence and the gov- raids against vice. His school was a base for the Aceh ernment response show that despite enormous gains made branch of the Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela in counter-terrorism efforts since the first Bali bombs in Islam, FPI), a national group that in Jakarta is known for 2002, intelligence remains weak; monitoring of prisons its thuggish attacks on bars, brothels, restaurants open and ex-prisoners remains a problem; police handling of during Ramadan, deviant sects and “unauthorised” “active shooters” needs improvement; and corruption churches. The lintas tanzim project succeeded in recruit- continues to be a major lubricant for terrorist activities ing some FPI members but not their leader. in Indonesia. In the end, Dulmatin and the others went along with the Dulmatin’s return to Indonesia, probably in late 2007, idea of setting up a secure base in Aceh, believing that set in motion what became known as the lintas tanzim since the rebel Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh or cross-organisational project. Several influential jihadi Merdeka, GAM) had fought the Indonesian army there leaders independently had reached the conclusion that for more than 30 years, it had suitable terrain; alone JI had become too passive, abandoning jihad for reli- among Indonesian provinces, it was authorised to apply gious outreach, and Noordin’s group had no plans be- Islamic law and many community leaders were pro-sharia; yond preparing for the next attack. One influential cleric and a number of hardline groups that had set up shop in who joined the group, Oman Rochman alias Aman Aceh after the 2004 tsunami were potential allies. In fact, Abdurrahman, argued that Indonesians should follow the community support was negligible and the coalition was teachings of Jordanian radical scholar Abu Muhammad doomed from the start. The experiment ended with a al-Maqdisi and wage jihad to establish Islamic law but series of police raids in Aceh and Jakarta in February, in a way that did not cause Muslim casualties. For both March and April. Aman and other leaders, including Dulmatin, it was criti- cal to establish a secure base from which operations could The failure of this initiative raises the question of where be launched and the nucleus of an Islamic state estab- Indonesian jihadism goes next. Three streams are alive, lished. The enemy should be defined not simply as any- if not particularly well. One is the JI variant, which teaches one from the U.S. or allied countries, but as anyone who jihad, advocates military training, but says the faithful obstructed the application of Islamic law – and that meant currently lack the resources to take on the enemy and that many Indonesian officials were high on the list. therefore should focus on building up their ranks through dakwah (religious outreach). The second is the network led by the late Noordin Top focused on the use of suicide bombings to terrorise the U.S. and its allies. The third Indonesia: Jihadi Surprise in Aceh Crisis Group Asia Report N°189, 20 April 2010 Page ii was represented by the coalition, but also by its indi- high-risk. Penalties for recidivism should be in- vidual components: KOMPAK, Darul Islam, disgruntled creased in cases involving terrorist activity, includ- JI members and others. Like Noordin, it was ready for ing through making recidivists ineligible for routine jihad now, but only as the means to the end of applying sentence reductions. Islamic law in full. If Noordin favoured bombings, the 3. Strictly enforce Indonesian tax laws and regulations coalition members preferred targeted assassinations, as with respect to publishers of jihadi material. less likely to result in Muslim deaths. Further mutations and realignments will almost certainly occur; it is not 4. Appoint a special task force within the police to impossible that the coalition’s failure will lead some to focus on apprehension and prosecution of docu- reconsider their distaste for Noordin’s tactics. ment forgers, particularly forgers of passports and Indonesian identity cards (KTPs), with special at- Dulmatin’s involvement in the Aceh group also under- tention to syndicates operating in cooperation with scores the possibility of cross-border jihadi cooperation. Indonesian immigration personnel. Dulmatin wanted the Aceh training camp to be a centre 5. Ensure that the new anti-terror body is led by a civil- for mujahidin from across the region, but it remains ian and has the capacity to commission and use aca- unclear exactly what kind of cooperation he envisaged demic studies and surveys on extremist movements, with his Abu Sayyaf and Moro Islamic Liberation Front including local case studies, so that policy can be (MILF) colleagues in Mindanao. based on hard data rather than unproven assump- tions such as that poverty breeds radicalism. RECOMMENDATIONS 6. Undertake internal and external assessments of po- lice handling of “active shooter” cases where the To the Government of Indonesia target was killed rather than arrested; and identify 1. Take immediate measures to enforce existing regu- training and equipment needs to increase the likeli- lations in prisons, especially with respect to those hood that high-value targets in the future can be convicted of terrorism, including by banning the use captured alive. of mobile phones