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| Southeast Asia |
| JI was formed 50 years before bin Laden |
| 2005-10-03 |
| Interesting historical tidbit - they were originally formed as the Indonesian Hezbollah to support the Japanese occupation of Indonesia during WW2 and helped to run part of the country on the part of their Co-Prosperity Sphere. BEFORE he was sentenced to death last year for orchestrating the Bali nightclub bombings in 2002, Mukhlas Imron boasted of his friendship with Osama bin Laden but fiercely denied that al-Qaeda had played any role in the attacks. From the dock of an Indonesian court, the 43-year-old religious teacher insisted this was a homegrown operation by Jemaah Islamiyah which, he said, was capable of staging more atrocities. The baby-faced Mukhlas ranted at the judges about JIâs ambition to create a single, fundamentalist Islamic state in South-East Asia which would embrace Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines and have a population of more than 400 million. The leadership of JI has long argued that its campaign began more than 50 years ago, long before the world had heard of bin Laden. The leaders claim that al-Qaeda copied their blueprint for a terror network, pointing out that bin Laden picked the brains of some JI veterans, who in the early 1990s fought Soviet occupation in Afghanistan and were persuaded to join his terror camps. Close ties still exist, but while al-Qaeda concentrates its rhetoric and attacks on America and its Western allies, the focus for JI and its associates is targets closer to home. The weekendâs bombings were, experts say, JIâs way of proving it remains a danger to governments in its own region and that it does not need al-Qaedaâs money or its inspiration to operate. Images of the bloodshed in Iraq fuel Muslim anger in Jakarta as much as it does elsewhere but investigators are sure this latest team of suicide bombers will prove to have been recruited, funded and organised locally by a group which cares more about damaging Indonesia than contributing to the notion of global jihad. Rohan Gunaratna, of the Singapore-based Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, said: âThey chose Bali again to humiliate Indonesia, who claimed to have dismantled JI. This shows they are still in business and it will encourage more to join them.â Islam was first a rallying cry for resistance in Indonesia against Dutch colonisation in the early 17th century, though the modern roots of JI go back to the end of the Second World War when the Darul Islam movement incited a rebellion to end European rule and establish an independent Muslim state. In about 1969 two clerics, Abdullah Sungkar and Abu Bakar Bashir, JIâs present spiritual leader, revived the Darul Islam movement and its conservative strain of Islam. They began modestly enough with a pirate radio station preaching to the poor and a boarding school set up in Java by the charismatic Bashir. He chose as a school motto, âDeath in the way of Allah is our highest aspirationâ. Teenagers in Indonesia hostile to the religious repression of President Suhartoâs regime in the 1970s began supporting the efforts of local Muslim groups, who became collectively known as Jemaah Islamiyah, which literally means âIslamic communityâ. These small groups agreed to live by Islamic law and were blamed for arson attacks on churches, nightclubs and cinemas. Bashir and other ringleaders were rounded up by Suhartoâs forces as part of a crackdown on militants, though in 1982 the cleric escaped prison and fled to Malaysia. From there Bashir began recruiting followers for his organisation. Among the most enthusiastic volunteers was another young teenage exile to Malaysia, Riduan Isamuddin, better known as âHambaliâ. Dubbed by the CIA as âThe bin Laden of South- East Asiaâ, Hambali would become the groupâs main link to al-Qaeda. In 1988, aged 22, he travelled to Afghanistan with Bashirâs blessing to fight the Soviet Red Army where he met radical Muslims from around the world who, he discovered, shared his passion for a global jihad. Two years later, in 1990, he slipped back to Malaysia. There he became frustrated by JIâs leadership, who argued for a violent uprising but did little more than distribute pamphlets and set up religious schools. Hambali claims credit for giving JI its local muscle. He would also put in practice lessons he learnt from al-Qaeda, including the formation of bogus companies to launder money for terror operations. Hambali was so trusted by al-Qaeda that he attended a terror summit in 1995 where the plan was first devised to turn hijacked planes into flying bombs. After Suhartoâs downfall in 1998, the leading figures in JI returned to Indonesia. Hambali went underground to plot terror operations, while the frail, white-haired Bashir toured mosques and schools preaching jihad in his own country. The group produced a bomb manual for affiliates in the region and sent emissaries to Thailand, Singapore and as far as Australia to instruct local organisers how to set up their cell structures. They funded religious madrassas, which quickly became breeding grounds for radicals. Personal ties and local loyalties were the most successful way of recruiting supporters, not the speeches of bin Laden. Some governments, like Thailandâs, have refused to acknowledge JIâs influence on their own local insurgency. The authorities blame âthugs and gangstersâ for the spate of bombings and murders of security forces in southern Thailand even though several JI figures have been arrested there. Among them was Hambali who, when he was picked up 60 miles from Bangkok in August 2003, was named by the CIA as the operational commander of Jemaah Islamiyahâs military wing. The 42-year-old is among a handful of terror detainees regarded as so valuable to the CIA that the US Government refuses to say where he is held. His alleged confessions led some security agencies to claim JI was beaten. The misery seen in Bali suggests otherwise. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 The authorities blame âthugs and gangstersâ for the spate of bombings and murders of security forces in southern Thailand... Which is what terrorist generally are when they don't have some pseudo-rationalized agenda to paper over their simple grasp for power. |
| Posted by: Ebbineng Jineting9128 2005-10-03 08:26 |