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Southeast Asia
New Islamic militia appears in Sulawesi
2004-02-04
This sounds a lot to me like Laskar Jihad under a new name, but okay ...
A new militant Islamic militia has emerged here, according to a report released Tuesday by the International Crisis Group, just as Attorney General John Ashcroft is scheduled to arrive to address a conference on terrorism. The new group, Mujahedeen Kompak, was formed by hard-liners who split from Jemaah Islamiyah, according to the report, which was written by Sidney Jones, widely considered the leading authority on Jemaah Islamiyah. Kompak, an acronym, translates roughly as Action Committee for Crisis Response.
Is this the same thing as the Laskar Khos that Zulkarnaean was reputed to lead? It says they split away from JI, but the way these jihadi groups work that could just be a tactical subdivision.
The emergence of the group in central Sulawesi Province, which has been racked by Christian-Muslim violence, "suggests a need to revise assessments about the nature and gravity of the terrorist threat in Indonesia," Ms. Jones wrote in the report. "While the shorter-term prospects are somewhat encouraging, there is an underappreciated longer security risk." The organization presents a possible new partner for Al Qaeda, she wrote.
Possible?
This is the sixth report about Jemaah Islamiyah and terrorism in Southeast Asia by Ms. Jones, an American who speaks fluent Bahasa Indonesia, the national language.
Bahasa Indonesia, curiously enough, translates as "Indonesian language."
American, Australian and Asian intelligence and police officials are in general agreement that she has done a better job of understanding and analyzing the organization than have their own agencies.
I'm surprised they'd ever admit such a thing. It'd be more likely they'd describe her as "an invaluable resource," or as "an insightful analyst." Did the NY Times hire Andrew Gilligan?
One of the most arresting facts in the 41-page report is contained in a footnote that establishes the date of the founding of Jemaah Islamiyah as Jan. 1, 1993. That comes from a document Ms. Jones obtained. It will surely be uncomfortable for many Indonesians, including senior government officials and religious leaders, who continue to lie through their teeth insist that Jemaah Islamiyah does not exist.
There's a difference between a political statement and what you really, truly believe. Ask somebody named Big Guido about the existence of the Mafia...
Mr. Ashcroft is scheduled to speak Wednesday morning at the terrorism conference, which is being held in Bali and is jointly sponsored by Indonesia and Australia. He is hoping to meet with the Indonesian president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, in the afternoon, American and Indonesian officials said. High on Indonesia’s agenda will be a request that the United States turn over a top Jemaah Islamiyah operative, Riudan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, a senior Indonesian official said. After an intensive manhunt, Mr. Isamuddin, an Indonesian who was one of the few non-Arabs to earn a place in Osama bin Laden’s inner circle, was captured by the Central Intelligence Agency in Bangkok in August. He is being interrogated at an undisclosed location, and the United States has resisted persistent entreaties from the Indonesians for access to him.
No telling what they're learning from him. Important stuff. Aboud Hamzah Haz...
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has had a team, or teams, of agents in Indonesia since August 2002, when two Americans were killed and eight were wounded in an attack in the easternmost Indonesian province of Irian Jaya. The attacks were in an area owned by Freeport-McMoran Copper and Gold Inc., the giant mining company, which had paid Indonesian soldiers to provide security. More F.B.I. agents came two months later, after the car bomb attacks that killed more than 200 in Bali. Publicly, American officials say the Indonesians have been cooperating with the F.B.I. in those investigations. Privately, however, American officials complain about the lack of full cooperation.
My guess is that the cops usually do, the army and the pols usually don't...
All indications are that Indonesian soldiers were involved in the killings in Irian Jaya, American officials have said. Because of a lack of full cooperation and the absence of vital forensic evidence, however, they are doubtful that the killers will ever be found.
That's what's supposed to happen...
In the attacks in Bali, the Indonesian government has not given the F.B.I. as much direct access as it would like to those under arrest, several of whom have been convicted and are facing execution. The officials added that this was not considered a serious impediment, because, they noted, the Indonesians had done a good job of rounding up and prosecuting the attackers. The arrests have seriously crippled Jemaah Islamiyah, which has also been weakened by internal divisions "over how, when and where to wage jihad," Ms. Jones said in her report. A top priority for governments now, she concluded, is to prevent central Sulawesi from becoming an international training center like Afghanistan was under the Taliban.
Al-Qaeda was running training camps in Sulawesi in early 2001, though those were reputedly shut down. There have been recent claims that new camps have been opened up, but no real confirmation one way or another. If those camps are there, then it’s already an international terror hub and needs to be shut down. JI is already churning out new flunkies in Mindanao, we don’t need another version of those MILF camps sprouting up in Indonesia proper.
Posted by:Dan Darling

#2   Much obliged, Paul, that does answer a lot of my questions, though it still looks as though the Mujahideen Kompak is still more or less an affiliate of JI and would probably side with Zulkarnaean or Dr. Azahari in carrying out further terrorist attacks inside Indonesia.

The only reason as to why I brought up the Lashkar Khos is because I thought there might be a similarity between that and the Kompak, but it looks like I was wrong.
Posted by: Dan Darling   2004-2-4 1:17:34 AM  

#1  Hey Dan, you can find most of the answers in the ICC's report here, although I found it difficult to keep track of all the players and groups involved.
It essentially says that JI was leery about getting involved in the Christian/Muslim violence in Poso and Ambon, because they detected the hand of the Indonesian Army in the background. They were also slow to act because of the centralised structure that meant everything had to go through a lot of beurocracy before anything could be decided.
So a bunch of JI men joined up with Mujahedeen Kompak, which was an independent Jihadi outfit that would accept anyone who wanted to join.
They also had a falling out with Laskar Jihad, because the former are Indonesian ultra-nationalists with an Islamist outlook, while the latter are hardcore Jihadis who don't even believe in the concept of the nationstate.
Lashkar Khos is said to be JI's 'special forces', and is unrelated to Mujahedeen Kompak.
Posted by: Paul Moloney   2004-2-4 12:30:46 AM  

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