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How the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist network operates
International Crisis Group - 11 December 2002, Asia Report Number 43, Jakarta/Brussels
Table of contents
Executive summary
I. Introduction
II. Jemaah Islamiyah and
MMI: A reappraisal
III. The Christmas eve bombings
IV. The Christmas eve bombings
in Medan and the Aceh connection
A. Aceh and JI’s relationship
with GAM defectors
B. The Medan bombings
C. The Pekanbaru, Riau connection
V. The Lombok-Sumbawa connection
VI. The West Java Christmas
eve bombs
VII. The Sulawesi and Kalimantan
connection
VIII. Jihad in Poso and
Maluku
A. Laskar Mujahidin in Maluku
B. Laskar Jundullah in Poso
C. Recruitment
D. Imam Samudra’s Halaqah
E. Maluku’s importance to
the JI network
IX. Conclusion
Appendices
A. Partial list of bombings
in Indonesia attributed to Jemaah Islamiyah
B. Index of names and organisations
Executive summary
As the Indonesian-led investigation proceeds, the Bali attack on 12 October 2002 looks more and more like the work of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI). But what exactly is Jemaah Islamiyah and how does it operate? It is one thing to describe, as many have by now, a network of Islamic radicals extending across Southeast Asia, led by Indonesian nationals, with a loose structure characterised by four territorial divisions known as mantiqis that cover peninsular Malaysia and Singapore; Java; Mindanao, Sabah, and Sulawesi; and Australia and Papua respectively. It is another to get a feel for how people are drawn into the network, what characteristics they share, what motivates them, and what resources they can draw on.
ICG examined earlier bombings in Indonesia linked to JI to try to answer some of these questions. There was no shortage of cases: JI has been linked to dozens of deadly attacks across Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia from 1999 to the present. ICG looked in particular, however, at the Christmas Eve bombings of December 2000, in part because they covered so much territory: more than 30 bombs were delivered to churches or priests in eleven Indonesian cities across six provinces, all wired to explode around the same time. If we could understand who the foot soldiers were from one end of the country to the other, perhaps we could get a better sense of JI as an organisation.
The report, therefore, takes the Christmas Eve bombings in Medan, North Sumatra; Bandung and Ciamis, West Java; and Mataram, Lombok, in Nusa Tenggara Barat Province as a starting point. Using trial documents, police information, and extensive interviews, it examines the network linked to JI in each area. Research for this report was conducted over a two-month period by a team consisting of ICG staff and consultants.
Several findings emerge:
JI does appear to operate through cells but with a rather loosely organised and somewhat ad hoc structure. The top strategists appear to be protégés of Abdullah Sungkar, the co-founder with Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, of Pondok Ngruki, a pesantren (religious boarding school) in Central Java, mostly Indonesian nationals living in Malaysia, and veterans of the anti-Soviet resistance or, more frequently, the post-Soviet period in Afghanistan. A trusted second tier, who share many of those characteristics, appear to be assigned as field coordinators, responsible for delivering money and explosives and for choosing a local subordinate who can effectively act as team leader of the foot soldiers.
The bottom rung, the people who drive the cars, survey targets, deliver the bombs, and most often risk arrest, physical injury, or death, are selected shortly before the attack is scheduled. They are mostly young men from pesantrens (religious boarding schools) or Islamic high schools. The schools that provide the recruits are often led by religious teachers with ties to the Darul Islam rebellions of the 1950s or to Pondok Ngruki.
Until the Bali attack, the motivation for bombings appears to have been revenge for massacres of Muslims by Christians in Indonesia –Maluku, North Maluku, and Poso Indonesia Backgrounder: How The Jemaah Islamiyah Terrorist Network Operates ICG Asia Report N°43, 11 December 2002 Page ii (Central Sulawesi) where communal conflict erupted in 1999 and 2000. With a few exceptions, such as the attack on the residence of the Philippine ambassador in Jakarta in August 2000, the targets were mostly churches and priests. Recruitment of foot soldiers was often preceded by discussions about Maluku and Poso or the showing of videos about the killings taking place there. Those conflicts not only served to give concrete meaning to the concept of jihad, a key element of JI’s ideology, but also provided easily accessible places where recruits could gain practical combat experience. The U.S.-led war on terror now appears to have replaced Maluku and Poso as the main object of JI’s wrath, especially as those conflicts have waned, and the targeting in Bali of Westerners, rather than Indonesian Christians, may be indicative of that shift.
Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, now under arrest in a police hospital in Jakarta, is the formal head of Jemaah Islamiyah, but a deep rift has emerged between him and the JI leadership in Malaysia, who find him insufficiently radical. Ba’asyir undoubtedly knows far more than he has been willing to divulge about JI operations, but he is unlikely to have been the mastermind of JI attacks.
A curious link appears in the Medan Christmas Eve bombing between the Acehnese close to JI and Indonesian military intelligence, because both are bitterly opposed to the Acehnese rebel movement, Gerakan Aceh Merdeka or GAM. This link needs to be explored more fully: it does not necessarily mean that military intelligence was working with JI, but it does raise a question about the extent to which it knew or could have found out more about JI than it has acknowledged.
This is a background report, containing more in the nature of conclusions than familiar ICG recommendations. But there are three courses of action which the Indonesian government authorities should, in the light of our findings, certainly now pursue:
Reopen investigations into earlier bombings, with international assistance if possible, as to an extent is being done, but as a top priority and with a new investigation strategy involving systematic pooling of all information from across the country and review of cases where "confessions" were alleged to have been extracted under torture.
Strengthen intelligence capacity and coordination, but through a focus on the Indonesian police, rather than on the National Intelligence Agency (Badan Intelijen Nasional) or the army.
Address corruption more seriously in the police, army, and immigration service, with particular attention to the trade in arms and explosives.
I. Introduction
The 12 October 2002 attacks in Bali that killed almost 200 people were the most devastating of a series of bombings across Indonesia and the Philippines that have been attributed to Jemaah Islamiyah (JI). JI, an organisation set up in Malaysia by Indonesian nationals in the mid-1990s that has links to al-Qaeda, has a network of supporters across Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the southern Philippines and has reached out to Muslim organisations in Thailand and Burma. The oil-rich state of Brunei may be within its sights as well as a possible source of support or refuge.
This report follows-up an August 2002 briefing by ICG, which examined the historical and intellectual antecedents of people linked to JI.1 That briefing focused on the Darul Islam rebellions in Indonesia in the 1950s and on the central role of a religious boarding school in Solo, Central Java, called Pondok Ngruki and its two founders, Abdullah Sungkar, now dead, and Abu Bakar Ba’asyir. The exact nature of the structure and organisation of JI in Indonesia remained unclear.
In the months that followed, much was published about JI, largely based on regional intelligence sources.2 Singapore’s representative to the United Nations, Kishore Mahbubani, summed up much of the existing knowledge when Singapore in October formally requested the committee set up under
Security Council Resolution 1267 to add Jemaah Islamiyah to its list of terrorist organisations associated with al-Qaeda.3 JI, the Singaporean government said: is a clandestine regional terrorist organisation formed by the late Indonesian cleric Abdullah Sungkar. On his death, the leadership (amir) of the JI was assumed by another Indonesian, Abu Bakar Bashir [sic]. The JI aims to set up a pan-Islamic state in Southeast Asia … through terrorist means and revolution. The JI organisation consists of four districts or territories (mantiqis) which are in turn made up of several branches (wakalahs). The Singapore JI is a wakalah level network under the Malaysian JI mantiqi which was headed by Hambali (a.k.a. Riduan Isamuddin) until the latter half of 2001 when he was wanted by the Malaysian authorities in connection with violence linked to the Kumpulan Militant Malaysia (KMM). The Malaysian mantiqi leadership position was then assumed by one ustaz Mukhlas.4
After the Bali bombings, international scrutiny of JI increased but reporting tended to focus on the role of Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, especially after his arrest in mid-October; the whereabouts of top JI figure Hambali; or the immediate circle of those suspected of direct involvement in the attack. ICG was interested in gaining a deeper understanding of JI’s network in Indonesia: who is recruited and how, what motivates them, and what
the relationship is between leaders and followers. To do this, ICG looked more closely at one of JI’s major operations, the Christmas Eve bombings of December 2000 in which the plan was for explosions to go off at the same time in churches across Indonesia.
While much information emerged on those issues in the course of the research, ICG also made some unexpected findings:
The hardliners within JI and the strategists of its bombing campaigns have reportedly fallen out with Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, whom they consider insufficiently radical. He and some of his closest followers were reportedly opposed to the Bali bombings for tactical reasons.
The network in Indonesia on which JI can draw extends geographically from Aceh in the west to Sumbawa in the east, and probably further to Flores. It includes alumni of Pondok Ngruki, pesantrens led by Darul Islamaffiliated kyai (religious leaders), veterans of the conflicts in Maluku and Poso – but not Laskar Jihad members – and veterans of Afghanistan.
A few of the Acehnese who are close to the JI leadership are also close to Indonesian military intelligence. For historical and political reasons, the interests of JI and military intelligence intersect in Aceh because both are opposed to the Acehnese rebel movement, Gerakan Aceh Merdeka or GAM.
All the attention in 2001 to an "al-Qaeda training camp" in Poso has obscured the fact that JI members or sympathisers ran dozens of camps throughout Indonesia, some of which included foreign trainers. They were mostly small operations involving a dozen or so trainees at a time, who were taught use of weapons and bomb-making as preparation for fighting in Maluku and Poso.
The conflicts in Maluku and Poso were critical to recruitment into JI and development of combat experience and military skills. Indeed, for at least two years, those conflicts may have taken the place of Afghanistan and the southern Philippines as training centres, not just for Indonesian Islamic radicals but for non-Indonesians linked to JI as well.
To the extent that those conflicts have cooled down considerably, important questions arise: does JI have the capacity to heat them up? As the Maluku and Poso conflicts wane, has targeting of Westerners replaced the targeting of Indonesian Christians, a characteristic of JI operations throughout 2000 and 2001? And where will JI’s next training ground of choice be located?
The quick and credible results produced thus far by the team of Indonesian and international investigators working on the Bali case, in particular the arrests of Amrozi (on 5 November 2002); Abdul Aziz alias Imam Samudra (on 21 November 2002); Ali Gufron alias Muchlas (on 3 December 2002) and more than a dozen others, have done much to convince a sceptical Indonesian public that home-grown radicals were involved in the Bali killings. On 28 November 2002, I Made Pastika, the police general heading the Bali inquiry, said the results "should put to rest widespread doubts about whether JI exists in Indonesia".5
II. Jemaah Islamiyah and MMI: A reappraisal
Abdullah Sungkar, the co-founder with Abu Bakar Ba’asyir of Pondok Ngruki, started Jemaah Islamiyah in Malaysia around 1995.6 It was an ideological hybrid. The influence of Egyptian Islamist radicalism was strong, in terms of organisational structure, secrecy, and the mission of jihad. The Darul Islam rebellions of the 1950s remained an important inspiration but there was a pronounced anti-Christian tinge to JI teachings that was uncharacteristic of Darul Islam. People close to Abdullah Sungkar attribute this to his long association with the Indonesian Islamic Propagation Council (Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah Indonesia or DDII) that one scholar noted had "an almost paranoid obsession with Christian missionary efforts as a threat to Islam and an increasingly strong orientation towards the Middle East, notably Saudi Arabia".7
A student of Sungkar’s said he frequently compared the struggle of Muslims in Indonesia to that of the Prophet in Mecca. Just as the Prophet had had to adopt a strategy of working in secret, so any attempt to struggle openly for an Islamic state was likely to be crushed by the enemies of Islam.8 Sungkar’s teachings were promoted through not only JI but also the pesantren or religious school he helped found in Malaysia called Pondok Pesantren Luqmanul Hakiem in Johor. Amrozi, the Bali bombing suspect, was a student at this school, which he acknowledged was as a JI institution.9 In his interrogation deposition, Abu Bakar Ba’asyir said that Malaysian authorities accused the pesantren of having a Wahabist orientation.10
When Abdullah Sungkar died in November 1999, shortly after his return to Indonesia, Ba’asyir was named his successor as head of JI. But many of Sungkar’s Indonesian recruits, particularly the more militant younger ones, were very unhappy with the idea of Ba’syir taking over. This younger group reportedly included Riduan Isamuddin alias Hambali; Abdul Aziz alias Imam Samudra, arrested in West Java on 21 November 2002; Ali Gufron alias Muchlas (the older brother of Amrozi, a key suspect in the Bali bombings, arrested on 3 December; and Abdullah Anshori, alias Abu Fatih, among others. They saw Ba’asyir as too weak, too accommodating, and too easily influenced by others.11
The split worsened when Ba’asyir, together with Irfan Awwas Suryahardy and Mursalin Dahlan, both Muslim activists and former political prisoners, founded the Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI) in August 2000.12 According to the radicals, the concept of MMI diverged from Abdullah Sungkar’s aims. For one thing, they felt it betrayed Sungkar’s ijtihad politik or political analysis that JI should remain underground until the time was ripe to move toward an Islamic state. Abu Bakar Ba’asyir argued that the post-Soeharto openness offered opportunities; not to take advantage of them was not just wrong, it was sinful.
The radicals retorted that the political system might be more open, but it was still controlled by infidels. They were upset that MMI welcomed representatives of Muslim political parties working for Islamic law, because according to Sungkar’s teachings, any accommodation with a non-Islamic political system could contaminate the faithful and was forbidden. It was anathema to Sungkar’s devotees when Fuad Amsyari, secretary of the religious council of MMI, suggested it was better to work for Islamic law through the Indonesian parliament and voting for candidates of Muslim parties than to abstain (golput) in Indonesian elections. The radicals’ anger deepened when Ba’asyir brought a lawsuit against the Singaporean government earlier this year, because it suggested the legitimacy of a non-Islamic legal system.13
(The philosophy of the radicals may be gleaned from examining a website that Imam Samudra told reporters reflected the ideas behind JI’s struggle.)14 After the Omar al-Faruq confession appeared in Time magazine in September 2002, MMI-JI held several meetings in quick succession in which Ba’asyir argued strenuously that bombings and the armed struggle for an Islamic state should be put on hold for the time being because they would have negative repercussions for the movement15 MMI reportedly called meetings with its JI members in the Perak area of Surabaya; Lamongan; and Mojokerto, among other places, to discuss the possibility of bombings and argue that the moment was not ripe to go forward because the U.S. and Indonesia acting in concert could crack down on Muslim activists. It was not that Ba’asyir disagreed with violence as a tactic. He was concerned that the timing was wrong.
Ba’asyir’s advice went down poorly among JI members, and while they continued to show respect and acknowledge him as de jure head of JI, the radicals began searching for new leaders closer to their way of thinking. The focus on Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, who remains under arrest in a police hospital in Jakarta, may be somewhat misleading. He almost certainly has deep knowledge of the JI network and how it operates, and he almost certainly had prior knowledge of some of the bombings that have taken place in Indonesia. He is unlikely, however, to have been the mastermind.
III. The Christmas Eve bombings
The Christmas Eve bombings of December 2000 are important to study as an example of the JI network’s reach. While the professionalism involved in making and delivering the bombs was far lower than the Bali bombing, the coordination was impressive. The network ensured that bombs were delivered on Christmas Eve to 38 churches or priests in eleven cities: Jakarta, Bekasi, Bandung, Sukabumi, Ciamis, and Mojokerto, all on Java; Medan, Pematang Siantar, and Pekanbaru on Sumatra; Batam, the island off the coast of Sumatra close to Singapore; and Mataram on the island of Lombok, east of Bali. Nineteen people were killed, and some 120 wounded. The bombs that worked exploded between 8:30 and 10 p.m., with most going off around 9 p.m. Several were duds, including ten of the eleven delivered in North Sumatra, and others were defused by police. Bombs exploded prematurely in Bandung and Ciamis, West Java, killing some of the plotters. The materials used for explosives were similar across the country. A full list of the bombsites is at Appendix A.
From interrogation of some of the suspects at the time, police concluded that young Islamic radicals linked to the movement to establish an Islamic state (Negara Islam Indonesia or NII) were involved and that the motivation was to create terror among Christians. An investigation by journalists from the newsweekly Tempo, however, suggested that the motivation was to take revenge on Christians for the killing of Muslims in Maluku.16 Both were partly right, but there was no hint at the time of a link to Jemaah Islamiyah or the network around Pondok Ngruki.
It was only much later, through the interrogations of JI detainees in Singapore and Malaysia, and of Omar al-Faruq at Bagram Airforce Base (Afghanistan), that the involvement of JI came to light. It is now believed that plans for the bombings were finalised in October 2000 in a meeting in Kuala Lumpur, with different JI operatives assigned parts of the plan: Hambali was primarily responsible for Jakarta, Yazid Sufaat, a JI leader in Malaysia and now in detention there, for Medan; Imam Samudra for Batam, and Enjang Bastaman alias Jabir for Bandung.17 Faiz bin Abubakar Bafana, a Malaysian JI member who grew up in Jakarta and is now detained in Singapore, and Hambali reportedly purchased the explosives in Manila for MR180,000 (about US$47,000).
Bafana, in his interrogation deposition, said that sometime in November 2000, he met with Hambali who ordered him to go to Pondok Ngruki in Solo. At a small hotel in Pasar Klewer, Solo, Hambali and Bafana met with Ba’asyir and Zulkifli Marzuki, the JI secretary, to discuss three things: a regular monthly contribution of MR4,000 (US.$1,055) that Ba’asyir had requested for the high school associated with Ngruki; attacks on American interests in Singapore; and plans for the Christmas Eve bombings.18
Faiz Bafana returned to Singapore after the meeting, while Hambali went on to Jakarta. The key figures, including Hambali, Faiz Bafana, and Imam Samudra, met again in Kuala Lumpur before Christmas Eve.19 A police print-out of telephone traffic shows regular cell phone communication among Hambali, Imam Samudra, and Jabir in the weeks before Christmas Eve.
One week before the Christmas Eve bombings, a meeting took place at the Hotel Alia on Jalan Matraman in Jakarta. Among those attending, according to one person present, were JI leader Abu Fatih, Agus Dwikarna, Hambali, Zulkifli, and five representatives of the Darul Islam movement..20 The discussion focused on hatred of Christians, but, according to one of those present, there was no discussion of any plan for a nationwide bombing operation.21 No one was ever arrested for the Mataram or Pekanbaru bombings. Of the three people arrested in Medan, two were not involved in the bombings but overheard discussions about them. The third was tortured into a confession about making the timers for the bombs that may or may not be true; in any case, he was a minor figure. Jabir, the man who led the Bandung operation and was a close friend of Hambali’s, was killed when the bomb he was supervising went off prematurely. One of those caught in West Java knew that Jabir and Hambali were part of a secret political organisation; the others were brought in through personal ties to local people and almost certainly had no inkling of the larger network.
ICG took a closer look at the bombings in Sumatra, West Java, and Lombok to see what additional information could be gleaned about how JI operates.
IV. The Christmas Eve bombings in Medan and the Aceh connection
JI’s linkages and affiliations throughout Sumatra may be more complex than anywhere else in Indonesia, and in Aceh, they intersect with individuals and organisations long associated with Indonesian intelligence.
One only has to look at a map to see how Sumatra becomes the way station for people going to and from peninsular Malaysia. Malaysia-bound workers coming by bus from Java first stop in Pekanbaru, capital of Riau province, then catch local transportation to Dumai or Tanjung Pinang, from which they cross the Strait of Malacca to Johor. It is no coincidence that suspected Bali bomber Imam Samudra was on a Pekanbaru-bound bus when he was arrested on 21 November 2002.
Batam Island, just off the coast of Singapore, is a smuggling haven; it is also where many Acehnese sell marijuana in exchange for goods, including arms. Lampung, in southern Sumatra, had a strong Darul Islam movement in the 1970’s, led by Abdul Qadir Baraja, a Pondok Ngruki teacher and close associate of Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, who was present at the founding congress of Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia. Way Jepara in Lampung was also the site of what was effectively a satellite school of Pondok Ngruki that in 1989 became the focus of a bloody clash with the Indonesian armed forces.22
A. aceh and JI’S relationship with GAM defectors
And then there is Aceh. Aceh is a source of arms and explosives because of its separatist conflict, and there is a well-trodden path back and forth from Aceh through Batam to Singapore and through Medan and Riau to Malaysia for people and money transfers. More importantly, Aceh is where, in a bizarre way, the interests of JI and the Indonesian military intersect because both oppose GAM.23
Historically, JI’s links to Aceh are to the Darul Islam rebellion there (1953-1962) and to its leader, Teungku (Tgk.) Daud Beureueh, and his associates.24 Unlike the leaders of the Darul Islam rebellions in West Java and South Sulawesi, Beureueh was allowed to return to civilian life after his surrender and remained a venerated figure in Aceh until his death in 1987.
All Acehnese see Daud Beureueh as a hero. But if GAM regards him as the pioneer of the Aceh independence movement, JI leaders consider him the champion of an Islamic state. Members of the Darul Islam movement consider the West Javanese rebel leader, Sekarmadji Kartosuwirjo, to have been the first imam of the Islamic State of Indonesia (Negara Islam Indonesia or NII). As he was dying in 1962, Kartosuwirjo reportedly named Daud Beureueh as NII’s second imam. Daud Beureueh, in turn, named Abu Hasbi Geudong, an Acehnese who had fought alongside him, as his successor.
Geudong’s son, Teungku Fauzi Hasbi, a GAM defector regarded as a traitor by the current GAM leadership, divides his time between Medan, Jakarta, and Kuala Lumpur and meets regularly with the Jemaah Islamiyah leadership in Malaysia. He says he treats Hambali like a son. Most extraordinarily for a man with links to the JI leadership, he has also been close to the Indonesian army special forces (Kopassus) since he first surrendered in 1979 to then Kopassus officer First Lieutenant Syafrie Sjamsuddin – now Major General Sjamsuddin, spokesman for Indonesian military headquarters.25 The links between the Hasbi family and the leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah go back to the 1970s. Abu Hasbi Geudong and his wife hosted the East Javanese Darul Islam leader Haji Ismail Pranoto (Hispran) at their home in 1973 or 1974 when the latter went to Aceh to obtain Daud Beureueh’s blessing for a revival of Darul Islam. Daud Beureueh, as imam, reportedly personally endorsed Hispran’s induction of Abu Bakar Ba’asyir and Abdullah Sungkar into Darul Islam in 1976, although he never met them directly.26
That same year, Hasan di Tiro declared the independence of Aceh and created GAM, a movement that many Darul Islam veterans, and sons of veterans, enthusiastically joined. Abu Hasbi Geudong, his wife Chadijah, and his two sons, Muchtar and Fauzi, were among them. After his arrest, Fauzi Hasbi reportedly became an informer for the army and in 1979 was given an assignment by Soeharto’s internal security agency, Kopkamtib.27 The Indonesian army intensified operations in Aceh, and in 1980, Muchtar Hasbi, by then GAM’s vice-president, was killed by Kopassus troops in an operation that to this day the GAM leadership believes was made possible by Fauzi Hasbi’s treachery. (Other ICG sources strenuously deny this.)
Hasan di Tiro fled to Singapore, and then to Mozambique. Dr. Husaini Hasan, who had been Hasan di Tiro’s chief of staff, fled to Penang and then to Kuala Lumpur. Both di Tiro and Husaini Hasan were eventually granted political asylum in Sweden, but tensions soon broke out between them.28 Abu Hasbi Geudong was imprisoned from late 1979 to 1982. In 1983, he took part in a series of discussions in central Java on how to counter Soeharto’s repression of Islam. Among those in attendance were Fikiruddin (Abu Jjibril), now detained in Malaysia, and one of the men later convicted in the Borobodur bombings of 1985.29 In 1984, after a few months in Sulawesi, he moved to Singapore where he shared a house with Malik Mahmud, currently prime minister of GAM.30 From there he was invited to Sweden to serve as advisor to the exiled leadership (some say to help reconcile differences that had already emerged between Hasan di Tiro and Husaini). But ideological difference quickly emerged. Abu Hasbi Geudong was thoroughly Darul Islam, and, according to his son, Hasan di Tiro’s aims of reestablishing an Acehnese sultanate went counter to the idea of Republik Islam Aceh (RIA), the Acehnese Islamic Republic, that the Darul Islam people saw as the Acehnese component of an Indonesian Islamic State.31
In later 1984, after a war of words with Hasan di Tiro, according to Hasbi, Abu Hasbi Geudong and his wife moved to Malaysia. Their move preceded the flight there of Abu Bakar Ba’asyir and Abdullah Sungkar, but the four became neighbors in Negeri Sembilan State in 1985. Sometime in the mid-1990s, the then-governor of Aceh invited Abu Hasbi to return. He did so, and eventually died in Jakarta in 1993.
In 1999, Hasan di Tiro suffered a stroke in Sweden, and Dr. Husaini Hasan tried to assert his leadership of GAM. The rift between the two came into the open, and Dr. Husaini established a breakaway faction called Majelis Pemerintahan or MP-GAM. Since then, the Indonesian government has tried to work with MP-GAM in a variety of different ways to undermine the "real" GAM loyal to Hasan di Tiro. MP-GAM has also served as a banner under which a number of Acehnese unhappy with Hasan di Tiro can gather.
One of these is Teuku (Tk.) Idris Mahmud, a man whose name comes up repeatedly as a member of JI in Malaysia and was most recently mentioned by Amrozi, the Bali bombings suspect, as someone who regularly participated in meetings with Hambali and JI’s inner core.32 Idris, who is in his late 50’s, reportedly spent over a year in the southern Philippines and now lives in Malaysia. The way Indonesian politics works, Tk. Idris’s disaffection with the "real" GAM does not necessarily mean that he is an army intelligence plant within JI, although GAM has alleged just that.33
Several sources told ICG separately, however, that Tk. Idris is a protégé of another GAM defector named Arjuna. Arjuna is a Libyan-trained GAM fighter from Aceh Pidie whose entire family was reportedly wiped out by Indonesian security forces during the army’s counterinsurgency operations of the mid-1990s. He reportedly fled to Malaysia in 1998, joined forces with the Husaini faction there led by another former GAM member, Don Zulfahri, and began working with Indonesian officials in 1999.34 (Zulfahri was gunned down in broad daylight in Kuala Lumpur in June 2000 in a murder that MP-GAM attributed to di Tiro’s people.35) An ICG source in Jakarta said that the Acehnese Golkar notable and former head of the National Rice Logistics Agency, Bustanil Arifin, began supplying funds to Arjuna and other former GAM members, to set them up in retail trading businesses and attract other GAM members away from rebellion.
But despite his ties to the Indonesian government, Fauzi Hasbi has maintained close ties with Jemaah Islamiyah and its international network. In late 1999, when Ba’asyir as head of Jemaah Islamiyah called a meeting at the International Islamic University (Universiti Islam Antarabangsa) in Malaysia to set up the International Mujahidin Association (Rabitatul Mujahidin or RM), Fauzi Hasbi was invited.36 He had a separate meeting in his hotel with Abu Bakar Ba’asyir and the MILF representative, Abu Huraerah.37 His son also attended the two subsequent meetings of RM in Malaysia. On 15 December 1999, Hasbi met Omar al-Faruq in Aceh, together with a man named Husein from Saudi Arabia. He did not meet with Osama bin Laden’s deputy, Egyptian doctor Ayman al-Zawaheri, when the latter went to Aceh in June 2000, but spoke with him on the telephone. In August 2000, Fauzi Hasbi’s son represented the Front Mujahidin Aceh at the first congress of Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia in Yogyakarta, and Fauzi himself took part in a followup meeting in Ciputat, South Jakarta, three months later. Fauzi Hasbi’s telephone number was found on the handphone of Akim, one of the would-be bombers killed in the premature explosion of the Christmas Eve bombs in Bandung, and on the telephone of one of the people convicted in the Christmas Eve bombings in Medan.38 Fauzi Hasbi considers himself very close to Agus Dwikarna, and was with him in Makassar shortly before he left on his ill-fated trip to Mindano in March 2002, after which Dwikarna was arrested by Philippine police and charged with illegal possession of explosives.
And yet, Hasbi maintains regular communication with Major General Syafrie Sjamsuddin to this day and is known to be close to National Intelligence Agency head Hendropriyono.39 An army intelligence officer interviewed by ICG had Hasbi’s number programmed into his cell phone and called him in ICG’s presence on 22 November 2002.
B. The Medan bombings
With the depth of bad blood between the "real" GAM and JI’s Acehnese connections, it is curious that the three people convicted of the Christmas Eve bombings in Medan all have ties to the "real" GAM. Two, Ligadinsyah alias Lingga, and Fadli alias Akim, were not involved in any meaningful way in the bombings. The third, Edi Sugiyarto, readily admitted doing work for GAM but also had a long history of Kopassus ties, and when his wife was asked at his trial to name some of his friends, all those she named were army officers. The three are currently serving sentences at Tanjung Gusta Prison in Medan.
Edi Sugiarto, whom ICG was able to interview in prison, is a mechanic of mixed Javanese-Acehnese ethnicity, who once operated an auto and electronics repair shop or bengkel in Uleeglee, Pidie. The shop became well known as a gathering place for Kopassus forces throughout the period of intensive counter-insurgency operations from 1990-1998 when Aceh was effectively declared a combat zone (daerah operasi militer or DOM). Indonesian army personnel also took their walkie-talkies and radios there for repair.
Edi, whether voluntarily or under threat, began to use the cover of his repair work to inform GAM of radio frequenciesso it could monitor military conversations. He went out of his way to boast to ICG of having been called in by the late commander of GAM forces, Abdullah Syafi’ie, and asked to repair the radio equipment at the main GAM base. He was eventually so intimidated – according to one source by GAM, according to Edi, by the military who sent a letter in the name of GAM threatening to kill him – that he fled to Medan in 1998 and set up a new repair shop there.
Prosecutors accused Edi of making the fourteen bombs used in the Christmas Eve bombings attempts and receiving Rp.2 million (approximately U.S.$200) for each bomb.40 In August 2001, he was sentenced to eleven years in prison, minus time served. Edi told ICG that while he did indeed make remote controls and timers for GAM bombs in the past, he was a mechanic, not an explosives expert, and could only make the mechanical parts of bombs. Furthermore, he said, he was so badly tortured during interrogation that he would have confessed to anything, and in fact, no one had asked him to make any part of the fourteen bombs, and he had not done so.41 According to his lawyer, he was tortured with electric shocks to his genitals and beatings so severe that he has lost the hearing in one ear. But the testimony of Ligadinsyah alias Lingga, one of the others convicted, was damaging. At the time of his arrest, Lingga, now 40 years old, was the deputy commander of the "real" GAM for Central Aceh (Takengon) and well known to Indonesian authorities.42
Lingga testified that a GAM friend of his named Polem – an unhelpful appellation because it simply means elder brother in Acehnese – from the village of Pasar Teupin Punti, Samtalirah Aron subdistrict, in Lhokseumawe, North Aceh, had introduced him to Edi in early December 2000. According to Lingga, Polem, who also used the aliases Iswandi and Herianto and whose real name never emerged, was entrusted by GAM to purchase weapons and explosives and was a go-between for GAM and other parties around Central Aceh, North Aceh, and Pidie.43 If this is true, it is possible that Polem could have been the contact with JI, and that no one else in GAM save Lingga, knew about, let alone sanctioned, the bombings.
Lingga said he had wanted Edi’s help in making a remote control device for a bomb that he wanted to use in Central Aceh. He said that Polem told him later in the month that he had ordered fourteen timers and remotes from Edi and that Edi had finished making them all between 18 and 22 December 2000. Polem himself supplied the explosives and arranged for them to be delivered in cookie tins. (In his signed interrogation deposition, Edi says that Polem told him that GAM wanted to blow up churches in Medan and Pekanbaru to cause riots.)44
Lingga said that he, Polem, and Edi had met in Akim’s house on 5 January 2001, and Edi explained that there must have been a technical problem since only one bomb exploded. (Edi in his "confession" told the court that he had deliberately wired the timers so the bombs would not go off.)45 There is no indication from the court documents that Lingga had any involvement with ordering, making, or delivering the Christmas Eve bombs. He was sentenced to four and half years in prison.
Akim alias Fadli was the third man convicted. Now 43, he was a small-time ganja (marijuana) and arms dealer, whose relation with Edi, Polim, and Lingga was strictly business. Polem ordered weapons from Akim for use by GAM in Aceh.
The transaction itself is a fascinating example of underworld commerce. Polem ordered weapons. Akim gave another man, named Isa, ten kilograms of ganja to sell in Batam. Isa, who was a regular buyer of Akim’s ganja, traded it for a rifle but was afraid to bring it to Medan, so he and Akim sent a retired soldier to pick it up. Akim contacted Polem at a hotel in Medan when the ex-soldier came back with the gun, and everyone gathered at Isa’s house to inspect it. Akim got a Rp.300,000 (U.S.$30) commission from Polem on the Rp. 6 million (U.S.$600) deal and gave half to Isa.
Akim’s only connection to the affair was that he overheard a conversation between Polem and Edi about bombs on 21 December 2000, just before Christmas Eve, at a restaurant frequented by GAM supporters. He was eventually convicted on charges of selling ganja.
Polem is the key figure of the three, and it is not clear what happened to him. Lingga acknowledged not only that Polem was close to GAM, but that Polem’s followers (anak buah) had stolen explosives from Exxon Mobil that Lingga was planning to use to make the bomb for Central Aceh.46 Edi Sugiarto told ICG that Polem, who used the name "Herianto" when he made telephone calls but whose KTP (local identity card) was in the name of Iswandi, was a businessman who owned a shrimp farm in Kuala Serapu, Tanjung Pura, owned two trucks for longhaul trucking, and went back and forth between Pekanbaru, Batam, Aceh, and Medan.
Sometime shortly before Indonesia’s National Day on 17 August 2000, but according to Edi, Polem asked if Edi could keep some money for him. Edi did not have a bank account, so he turned the money over to Ramli, an Acehnese who runs a small restaurant called Arwana, known in Medan as a GAM gathering place. Polem gave him Rp.120 million (U.S.$12,000), then 40 million (U.S.$4,000), then 600 million (U.S.$60,000), then another Rp.120 million (U.S.$120,000), all in quick succession. He said Ramli used some of the first tranche to go to Malaysia.47 In his testimony at Edi’s trial, Ramli said he had known Edi for ten years in Uleeglee, and it was Edi who introduced him to Polem in about September/October 2000.
When he turned over the money to Edi, Polem said, "We’re going to make a big surprise" to aid the independence struggle in Aceh, but he did not say what it was.48
As part of its investigation into the Christmas Eve bombings, Tempo magazine reporters obtained police records of telephone traffic involving some of the key players in the three months before the bombings.49 Those records show Polem calling Edi Sugiarto 21 times and Edi Sugiarto calling Fauzi Hasbi seven times. Edi said he never talked to Hasbi but Polem had borrowed his telephone. There is also one call to Fauzi Hasbi from Ramli, but Ramli testified that he had never had any contact with him. He did, however, say that Polem borrowed his cell phone once while eating at his restaurant in late December.50 To the Tempo reporters, Fauzi Hasby denied any contact with Polem or anyone else linked to the bombings. What we have, then, is either an excellent example of a cell structure at work, where no one who made or delivered the bombs had any idea of who gave the orders for the job, or an operation that was infiltrated from the beginning by military intelligence. Since Yazid Sufaat has reportedly boasted about his role in the Medan bombings, and the Ngruki graduate Indrawarman is now being sought in connection with them, it would be interesting to find out what, if any, linkages exist between these two and Hasbi. (Hasbi told ICG he had never heard of Indrawarman and said that Abdullah Sungkar was planning to introduce him to Yazid in 1999 but died before he could do so.)
The police investigation was poor and never probed the question of who gave the orders. Police were apparently so interested in having a conviction that they tortured Edi Sugiarto to get one, suggesting that nothing he said in his deposition can be taken as reliable. It may have been politically convenient for both the army and police to have GAM as the local perpetrator but it makes no sense given the selection of targets or the nation-wide pattern of the bombings. It is possible that JI, working through Tk. Idris, made contact with someone close to the "real" GAM for the operational elements: putting the bombs together. It is also possible that Fauzi Hasbi, despite his close ties with the JI leaders in Malaysia, was never informed of the specifics of the plan. But it is hard to avoid the suspicion that someone in the armed forces must have known that at least the Medan part was in the works and saw the possibility that it could be blamed on GAM, despite the illogic of GAM’s taking part in an attack on churches. (GAM is a nationalist movement, working for Acehnese independence, not an Islamic movement, and has never made an issue of other religions.) ICG believes that if the operational structure of the Medan bombings can be uncovered, the truth behind the grenade attack on the Malaysian embassy on 27 August 2000 and the 13 September 2000 bombing of the Jakarta Stock Exchange – both attributed to GAM – may come to light.
C. The Pekanbaru, Riau connection
Five people were killed and nearly 30 injured, four critically, on Christmas Eve 2000 in Pekanbaru when a bomb exploded at a Batak church on Hangtuah Street in Pekanbaru, the capital of Riau Province. Another bomb was delivered to a church on Jalan Sidomulyo, but members of the congregation found it and threw it into the street before it could explode.51
The next day, a flyer from a hitherto unknown organisation Tentara Islam Batalyon Badar (the Badar Battalion of the Islamic Army) took responsibility for the bombing in the name of someone called Abu Mutafajirat but this was not convincing (among other things, the flyer said in large letters, "We Take Responsibility For The Bomb!" ("Bom Tanggung Jawab Kami!") It was treated at the time as the effort by some third party to divert attention to Islamic groups.
On 28 December 2000, another bomb went off, this time at the Sukajadi HKBP church on Ahmad Dahlan Street. There were no casualties. No one was ever arrested for the bombings, and no further information came out until a police report based on Singaporean sources said that a JI member detained in Singapore had coordinated them.52
Then, on 2 December 2001, another attack in Riau was thwarted when police arrested Basuki alias Iqbal bin Ngatmo, a 32-year-old man from Jombang, East Java, as he was carrying a bomb to a church in the town of Pangkalan Kerinci, Pelalawan about 70 kilometers to the east of Pekanbaru. He was brought to trial in early 2002, and in May, was sentenced to a heavy prison term.53
Basuki told the court that he had intended to go to Riau to look for work, but stopped in Jakarta and met one "Abdurrahman", who talked to him about the atrocities going on in Poso and Maluku. "Abdurrahman" gave him Rp.500,000 (U.S.$50) to go to Pangkalan Kerinci and meet a man named Ustadz Ahmad. Basuki took a circuitous route through Lampung, changing buses all the time. He was arrested before he could meet Ustadz Ahmed, but Riau police uncovered an interesting detail: "Abdurrahman" turned out to be an alias for Abdul Aziz alias Imam Samudra, the Bali bomb suspect who reportedly admitted his role in the Batam Christmas Eve 2000 bombings.54
Another odd link to the JI network has emerged in Riau. Reports began to circulate in May 2002 that a notorious local official, Huzrin Hood, head of Riau Islands District, had met with Omar al-Faruq, the alleged al-Qaeda operative who later (in June 2002) was spirited out of Indonesia to Afghanistan where he reportedly is in U.S. custody. Huzrin Hood is best known as a suspect in a Rp.87.2 billion (U.S.$8.72 million) corruption case in which he was said to have turned a blind eye to the illegal sale of sand to Singapore for land reclamation projects, and for trying to turn his district into a new province. Al-Faruq reportedly came to Tanjung Pinang, Riau to entrust his wife, Mira Agustina, daughter of the deceased commander of Laksar Mujahidin in Maluku, to Huzrin Hood while he went overseas. Mira had been born in Dabu Singkep, near Tanjung Pinang, but the reason al-Faruq came to Hood may have had more to do with other connections. Faruq reportedly went to a mosque, Mesjid Sungai Jang, known for its extremist leanings (a prestigious Indonesian news weekly described it as "fanatic").55
It was also the mosque most frequented by Huzrin Hood, and inquiries by journalists showed that Hood travelled frequently between Riau and Malaysia, where he took part in radical Muslim meetings.56 Huzrin denies ever meeting al-Faruq, and says no one with that name ever visited the Sungai Jang mosque. Riau police are investigating the allegations. But Pekanbaru is worth more attention. As a major commercial transit point for goods and people going from Indonesia to Malaysia, an intensive
investigation into how the Christmas Eve bombings were planned and carried out there could provide important clues to JI operations.
V. The Lombok-Sumbawa Connection
The Ngruki network has a long established connection with Lombok and Sumbawa through Irfan Awwas Suryahardy and his brother, Fikiruddin alias Abu Jibril. The link to Sumbawa is through Abdul Qadir Baraja, a Sumbawa native, who was convicted of supplying explosives for the 1985 bombing of the Central Javanese Buddhist monument, Borobodur. It is also through some of the victims of the Lampung incident of 1989. Dozens of families whose relatives were killed, injured, or imprisoned after that incident were resettled near Poto Tano, Sumbawa, through a controversial "reconciliation" program initiated by Hendropriyono in 1999.57
Churches in Mataram, the capital of Lombok, were among the targets of the Christmas Eve 2000 bombings but no one was ever caught. The attacks were a clear indication of JI presence but the connection was unlikely to be through Abdul Qadir Baraja.
More likely candidates are people with a stronger association with JI in the region. They include Abdul Jabar, a man currently on Indonesia’s most wanted list for alleged involvement in the bomb blast at the residence of the Philippines ambassador in Jakarta on 1 August 2000 and for taking part in the Christmas Eve bombings in Jakarta; a man named Arkam from Sumbawa, who stayed with Amrozi in East Java; one of the two Umars named by Amrozi as participants in the Bali plot who was from Sumbawa; and Mohammed Fawazi.58 The identity card of Fawazi, a graduate of a pesantren in Wanasaba, East Lombok, was found at the Bali site.
First, however, why not Baraja? The answer is that while Baraja attended the MMI Congress, he is not a JI member – another indication that while there is some overlap between the two organisations, they are not identical. Baraja was an early associate of Sungkar and Ba’asyir and taught at Ngruki. He was the author of a book on jihad, written in the mid- 1970s, and one charge against Ba’asyir in 1982 was that he was undermining the Soeharto-era state ideology, Pancasila, by distributing that volume. Baraja was convicted and imprisoned twice for acts of violence, the second time for thirteen years in connection with the bombing of a newly restored temple complex at Borobodur. Although born in Sumbawa, Baraja spent most of his pre-prison adult life in Lampung, and as head of NII for Lampung, was deeply involved in the activities around the Ngruki satellite pesantren in Way Jepara, led by an admirer of Abdullah Sungkar, that became the target of a bloody shootout with the Indonesian army (after, it should be noted, the people at the pesantren hacked a subdistrict military commander to death).59 In 1997, after his release from prison, Baraja established a new organisation devoted to promoting restoration of the Islamic caliphate. Called Khilafatul Muslimin, it was based in Teluk Betung, Lampung, with a branch in Baraja’s home town of Taliwong, Sumbawa.
The basic tenets of Baraja’s teaching are outlined in a book published in 2001 called A Description of Global Islamic Government. It calls for strict implementation of Islamic law, including stoning for adultery and, in some circumstances, amputation of hands for theft, under a government led by representatives of Allah called Ulil Amri.60 Two weeks after the Bali bombing, Baraja and a relative, Shodiq Musawa, who was also convicted in the Borobodur bombings, were preaching jihad in Taliwong, near the American-owned Newmont Mine.
The branch of Khilafatul Muslimin in Sumbawa is run by Baraja’s brother-in-law, and according to one source, eleven of its members are employees of Newmont.61 Three local sources told ICG that the organisation has conducted military training on a small island between the Sumbawa port of Poto Tano, near the shrimp farms funded by Hendropriyono as part of the islah package, and the East Lombok town of Mamben Lauq, home to suspected JI member Mohammed Fawazi. (Mamben Lauq is a traditional trading center with strong economic ties to Poto Tano.) Thus, while Baraja is not a member of JI, the Khilafatul organisation may provide recruits, protection, or other forms of assistance to would-be bombers.
One of Baraja’s associates in Taliwong is also a source of some concern, although his relationship with JI is not clear. Known as Ustadz Jafar, he has sent students to study in radical pesantrens in East Lombok.
Sumbawa also provided a safe haven for Abdul Jabar, who underwent training in Afghanistan and is famous for his role in the Maluku conflict where he is known as a tukang pembantai (massacrer) and is reputed to have killed more than 100 Christians.62 He is also reported to be an explosives expert. Abdul Jabar was born in Jakarta, but his wife is from the remote village of Sanio, subdistrict Woja, in Dompu, central Sumbawa. The village is surrounded by high, forested hills, and makes a convenient hiding place; Abdul Jabar has reportedly stashed weapons there. According to a local source, Abdul Jabar’s father-in-law, a retired soldier named Haji Mansur, is the former village head of Sanio and locally prominent; his son, Syahrir, is a policeman who tips off Abdul Jabar on army or police movements in the area. Haji Mansur, Syahrir, and Abdul Jabar himself all have protégés (anak buah) in the area who can serve as eyes and ears and offer virtually complete protection.
Police came into the village on 13 October 2002, the day after the Bali bombings, to arrest Abdul Jabar, who was known to be staying there. One local observer told ICG that the police botched it, by announcing on arrival, "We are going to shoot Abdul Jabar dead in his own home if he isn’t turned over to us now" – virtually an invitation to help him escape. The police reportedly then began searching homes without preliminary investigation, although ICG’s source is someone who has no reason to give the police the benefit of the doubt. They made no effort to establish a cordon around the village. Their search was fruitless, and they eventually gave up, but returned on 23 October, after Abdul Jabar’s name had been well-publicised as a possible suspect in the Bali bombings. Thanks to Abdul Jabar’s in-laws, however, the villagers knew the police were coming before they showed up, and there were no results.
VI. The West Java Christmas Eve bombs
Three West Javanese cities – Bandung, Sukabumi, and Ciamis – were hit by the Christmas Eve bombings, which appear to have been directed by Hambali and a Ngruki alumnus called Jabir whose real name was Enjang Bastaman. Jabir, about 40 years old, was from Banjarsari, Ciamis, lived in Malaysia, had trained in Afghanistan, and was so close to Hambali that when Hambali learned he had been killed, he broke down in tears.63
The operations he directed in West Java are a telling illustration of how a key figure covered his own tracks and of how the lowest ranks of foot soldiers were recruited.
Jabir’s contact in Bandung was a man named Iqbal, born Didin Rosman in 1958, a product of Darul Islam-affiliated pesantrens. Originally from Pasar Ucing, Garut, West Java, Iqbal had studied at Pesantren Rancadadap in Curug, Garut, then moved to another pesantren, Awi Hideung. In the late 1970s, he became a trader of palm sugar and other goods that he sold in the Kiaracondong market in Bandung. Iqbal reportedly kept up his religious studies with various kyai, including Kyai Saeful Malik, also known as Ajengan Cilik, a former Darul Islam leader.64
He took in students himself, one of whom was Haji Aceng Suheri, who reappears in the story as the owner of the house where the Christmas Eve bomb went off prematurely. Iqbal became the religious teacher for Suheri’s family until he urged Haji Aceng to take a second wife, at which point the first Mrs. Suheri threw him out.65 In 1995, Jabir, following his return from Afghanistan and Malaysia, briefly attended the religious study sessions (pengajian) led by Iqbal at Haji Aceng’s house. He then apparently returned to Malaysia.
Sometime in 1998, Jabir came to Iqbal’s house in Cicadas, Bandung, together with Hambali and a Malaysian resident named Umar. (This may be one of the Umars named by Amrozi as having been involved in the Bali bombings.) Umar was looking for a wife, and Jabir thought Iqbal might be able to help. Iqbal brought Jabir, Hambali, and Umar to his stepmother-in-law’s house because she ran a pengajian for women, and one of the participants had an eligible daughter. Iqbal’s mother-in-law introduced the men to the parents and the daughter. The men decided she was satisfactory, and the wedding was held two days later.
In September 1999, Jabir suddenly showed up at a kind of pesantren/clinic run by a religious teacher named Usman Mahmud, also known as Ustadz (teacher) Musa, in Cibatu, Cisaat, near Sukabumi. The clinic catered to drug addicts, gamblers, petty criminals, and others of similar ilk. Musa understood that Jabir had been a gang leader at the Bandung bus terminal and wanted to reform him. He offered work, and Jabir undertook to do odd jobs around the clinic, as well as to instruct some other patients in martial arts and to teach at the pesantren. Musa and others at the clinic described Jabir as a man obsessed with Ambon, about the deaths of Muslims there, and about the danger of "Christianisation" in Indonesia. Jabir left the clinic, together with a friend from Tasikmalaya named Dedi, who resurfaced as one of the West Java bombers, in January or February 2000.66
Jabir next appears in the area in mid-December 2000 – with Hambali and a man named Akim, all three Afghanistan veterans, Indonesian nationals, and Malaysia residents.67 Akim and Jabir were said by police to be explosives experts.68
On 14 December, Jabir went to Iqbal’s office at a non-governmental organisation working with the urban poor but he was out. The next day, at 5:30 a.m., Jabir came to Iqbal’s house with Akim. After some preliminaries, Jabir asked if Iqbal had attended the MMI Congress in Yogyakarta the previous August, and Iqbal said no.69 Jabir asked if he had attended the follow-up to the MMI congress in al- Mahdiyin mosque in Garut, and Iqbal again said no. They had a long discussion about the massacre of Muslims in Maluku. Jabir and Akim left after about two hours.
They came back the next morning about the same time and continued their discussion about Ambon, asking Iqbal’s opinion about various incidents there. This time they requested Iqbal’s help in finding a place to meet and said they would need it for about a month. They also asked his help in finding six people with whom they could work.70 Iqbal called Haji Aceng, who made his two-storey house available, and Jabir came to look at it on the morning of 18 December and pronounced it acceptable.
That evening, Jabir and Akim invited Iqbal back to the Hotel Rinjani in Bandung where they were staying. Jabir went to his room, Akim stayed in the lounge for about ten minutes, and then they were joined by Hambali. After prayers, they all broke the fast together. Hambali eventually invited everyone back to his hotel room. He talked about how Muslims were being massacred by Christians; how Chechens were being oppressed but would never be defeated; how a Malaysian woman had donated MR50,000 (about U.S.$13,000) to them; and how theirs was not a terrorist movement. Hambali reportedly asked if everything was ready for the Christmas Eve operation.71
Iqbal then sought out some of his former students, young men who had attended his Quranic study sessions (pengajian). On 19 December, Iqbal and Akim went to the house of Agus Kurniawan, one of those students, and Iqbal introduced Akim as "Asep" His real name was never used. Two other students, Rony Milyar and Wawan, another Afghanistan veteran, were also drawn in, and Iqbal and Akim delivered the three to Haji Aceng’s house, apparently on the pretext that a pengajian was going to be held there. At the time, Rony and Agus were both 21 years old, graduates of Islamic junior high schools, and unemployed.
Jabir in the meantime, was in Tasikmalaya, West Java on the morning of 19 December, meeting with Dedi Mulyadi, one of the men later convicted in the Ciamis bombing, and two others, Holis and Yoyo. Jabir may have known Dedi and Holis from Afghanistan, where they trained from 1990 to 1992, from links to pesantrens in the Tasikmalaya area (a Darul Islam stronghold), or from Malaysia.72 Dedi, indeed, is a typical foot soldier: Born in 1969, he went to Malaysia as a migrant worker in 1991, went almost immediately from there to Afghanistan, returned to Malaysia in 1992, worked there until late 1994, and returned to Tasikmalaya where he worked as a trader for the next few years. He moved to Purwakarta and lived there until 1999, when he apparently returned to the Tasikmalaya area.73 Jabir told Dedi, Yoyo, and Holis of the plan to blow up a number of different places around Bandung. He said that the aim of the bombings was to destroy and kill infidels (kafir), Westerners (boule), and Jews.74 Dedi later told police that Jabir seemed to have a particular hatred of priests.
Jabir then returned to Haji Aceng Suheri’s house and was waiting there when Iqbal arrived with Agus, Rony and Wawan. Iqbal introduced Jabir as "Ujang" to the three students, then departed. There apparently was little contact between the foot soldiers involved in the Ciamis plot and Jabir’s other associates involved in plans for Bandung and Sukabumi. Jabir left it to Dedi and his two associates to decide which church to bomb and encouraged them to conduct a survey to find an appropriate target. He supplied the money, the explosives, and basic information on how to wire up the bomb. Dedi received Rp.100,000, but said he went along with the plot not because of the money but because he had been convinced by Jabir’s arguments about jihad.75 Jabir and Akim exerted more direct supervision over the young men selected by Iqbal. As soon as Iqbal delivered Rony, Agus and Wawan to Haji Aceng’s house, Akim/Asep told them that they had an important mission to bomb the plaza. It became clear that "plaza" was a code word for church. When Agus asked why, Akim replied, "Because our brothers in Ambon and Halmahera are being massacred by Christians." Akim offered them Rp.300,000 each to take on the job.76
After some further discussion, Akim then assigned different targets to each of the students. Rony was to blow up the church on Gatot Subroto Avenue in Bandung; Agus was given a church on Ahmad Yani Street; Wawan was given the Buah Batu Church; and a fourth person, whom Rony and Agus did not know, was given a church on a university campus. They were told to do a preliminary survey of their sites and report back. Each received Rp.50,000 for completing the survey.
They finished the survey on the night of 21 December and returned to Haji Aceng’s house. They went home later that night, and returned to join the full team on 23 December. Rony and Agus saw the bomb-making materials for the first time, as well as the bags they would use to deliver the bombs. It was not until noon the next day, Christmas Eve, however, that Jabir/Ujang and Akim/Asep began putting them together.77
The Ciamis group, in the meantime, had chosen a church in Pangandaran, near the state telephone office, to bomb. When the team arrived there on 24 December, however, Holis went to the church and learned that there would be no Christmas Eve service. Dedi called for instructions, and Jabir told him to find another target, saying it could be Chinese, kafir (infidel), or an entertainment place, like a discotheque.78
The three looked for an appropriate alternative, found a Chinese-owned hotel along the beach, and decided to plant the bomb in a car parked at the hotel. All three went back to their own hotel. Yoyo took the bomb on his motorcycle, and 500 meters from where they were all staying, it went off prematurely, killing him. Dedi said later that Jabir had given strict instructions to carry the bomb horizontally, and when Yoyo took it on his motorcycle, he may have hit a rut in the road. Holis fled and remains on a police wanted list today. Dedi was caught and subsequently tried.
The bombs destined for Bandung churches, meanwhile, were to be detonated by cell phones. Jabir forgot to change the card inside his own phone, and it apparently went off when someone – likely involved in the plans, perhaps from the Ciamis group – called his number. Jabir’s death was such a disaster for the JI organisation that Hambali and Zulkifli Marzuki, a Malaysian identified in one report as the "secretary" of JI, met at the airport in Kuala Lumpur to evaluate what had gone wrong and ensure that it did not happen again.79 (This was not the first JI meeting held at the Kuala Lumpur airport; it may be that airports were convenient because no one would pay attention to a small group of men sitting and talking.)
A second meeting to evaluate the Bandung disaster was reportedly held shortly thereafter at MNZ Associates, a private business, in Kuala Lumpur. Present, according to one source, were Hambali, Muchlas (Amrozi’s elder brother), Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, Imam Samudra, and Teuku Idris. ICG has no independent corroboration of that source. The West Java bombings provide some notion of how the JI structure operates. In this case, Hambali was the overall planner. In his interrogation deposition, Iqbal described the relationship between Hambali and Jabir as one of master and disciple. Jabir was always very respectful of Hambali and took care to make sure he was seated first. Akim appears to have had the same relationship to Jabir. For the Batam bombings, Imam Samudra may have been on a level with Jabir, a trusted subordinate, coordinating the bombings on a regional basis. As coordinators, they supplied the funds and materials to field operatives. It was left to the field operatives to choose the foot soldiers who actually took the physical risk of planting or delivering the bombs.
VII. The Sulawesi and Kalimantan connection
While neither Sulawesi nor Kalimantan was targeted for the Christmas Eve bombs, the JI network has extremely strong ties to both. The historical links to South Sulawesi and the Darul Islam movement were described in an earlier ICG report.80 An important link to JI in East Kalimantan is the Hidyatullah pesantren outside Balikpapan, founded by a supporter of Kahar Muzakkar, the leader of the Darul Islam rebellion in South Sulawesi in the 1950s. But as with JI links in Sumatra, geography is as important as history. Sulawesi and Kalimantan became key transit points for arms and men between Malaysia and Maluku, or sometimes, between Indonesia and the southern Philippines. An understanding of the route used by Indonesian migrant workers to Malaysia is important. Workers going from eastern Indonesia to the eastern Malaysian state of Sabah usually travel to Makassar or Pare-pare in South Sulawesi, then by boat to Nunukan at the northern tip of East Kalimantan, and then to Tawao at the southern tip of Sabah. Once the conflict in Maluku was underway, the easiest route for Malaysian JI members, and perhaps for other nationalities as well, was through Sabah to Tawao, through Nunukan, and then across to Menado in North Sulawesi and on to Ambon. For arms shipments or other supplies from Mindanao, North Sulawesi was the easiest entry point for onward shipment to North or Central Maluku. East Kalimantan also became an important transit point between Malaysia and the Poso conflict in central Sulawesi.
ICG understands that some JI members are living on Pulau Sebatik, an island between Nunukan and Tawao that is jointly owned by Malaysia and Indonesia.81 There was no opportunity to check the information but geographically, it would make sense. The Sulawesi connections were critical for JI. People who could help JI’s activities there came to prominence: not just Agus Dwikarna from Makassar, now detained in the Philippines, but also Abdullah Sungkar’s son-in-law, Ustadz Yassin Syawal.
Since the Bali bombings, much has emerged about Syawal through information leaked by National Intelligence Agency (Badan Intelijen Negara or BIN) sources to the Jakarta newsweekly, Tempo, but it is worth restating here because of what it shows about one JI member’s associations.82 Like most other JI members, Ustadz Syawal has a host of aliases: Salim Yasin, Abdul Hadi Yasin, Abu Seta, Mahmud, Muhamad Mubarok, and Muhammad Syawal. A native of Makassar, he received military training in Camp Chaldun, Afghanistan, together with Omar al-Faruq and Hambali, probably in the late 1980s or early 1990s. He went to Afghanistan not as part of the group of volunteers sent by Abdullah Sungkar and the Ngruki exiles in Malaysia but through his ties to another Muslim organisation, Gerakan Pemuda Islam or GPI, the Islamic Youth Movement. The association with Hambali, however, appears to have been cemented in Camp Chaldun. It is not clear where Syawal met Sungkar’s daughter or whether he spent time with her father in Malaysia.
When he returned to Indonesia, he worked with the Kahar Muzakkar’s son, Abdul Azis Kahar Muzakkar, who ran the Makassar "branch" of the Hidyatullah pesantren mentioned above. He became a driving force behind the recruitment of Muslim volunteers for the Poso conflict in Sulawesi, however, after it erupted in full force in mid-2000. Together with al- Faruq and Aris Munandar, a close associate of Abu Bakar Ba’asyir’s at Pondok, he was accused of having carried out military training for recruits to Poso and Ambon at the main Hidyatullah pesantren in Balikpapan. Pesantren leaders have denied the allegation.83
He is accused of having been al-Faruq’s main contact within Indonesia when the latter was in the Philippines, and of having helped import weapons from the southern Philippines through North Sulawesi for use in Poso and Maluku.
Syawal thus has impeccable credentials as a JI member: family ties through marriage to a stepdaughter of Abdullah Sungkar (as good if not better than a Darul Islam lineage); service in Afghanistan; commitment to jihad; and wellestablished contacts on the ground in Sulawesi with JI-linked groups.
VIII. Jihad in Poso and Maluku
If they differed on other issues, JI and the MMI moderates were in total agreement on means and ends in Maluku and Poso. The Laskar Mujahidin, the armed forces of the Ngruki network, totalled at its height in late 1999 and early 2000 some 500 men – much smaller but better-trained than the Laskar Jihad troops, with whom they did not cooperate and sometimes clashed. (A particularly virulent enmity existed between Fikiruddin alias Abu Jibril of Laskar Mujahdin and and Ja’far Umar Thalib of Laskar Jihad, and the two nearly came to blows three times, once in the Middle East, once in Afghanistan, and once in Ambon, according to an ICG source.)84 The commander of Laskar Mujahidin forces through October 2000 when he was killed in Saparua, was Haris Fadillah alias Abu Dzar, a former Darul Islam figure from Bogor, West Java, but perhaps better known now as Omar al-Faruq’s father-in-law.85 He was succeeded after a leadership void of a few months by Aryanto Aris (also seen as Haris), a man from Magelang, East Java. By November 2001, Aryanto Aris was back in Java, taking part in the bombing of a church in North Jakarta.86 It is clear that Ambon served as a military training ground for JI recruits from across the region, much as Afghanistan and the Southern Philippines had for an earlier generation.
A. Laskar Mujahidin in Maluku
In an effort to understand how the Laskar Mujahidin worked, ICG interviewed an Ambon veteran whose brother and nephew had also been fighters there. He said an initial contingent of 50 recruits arrived in Ambon in February 1999, about a month after the first wave of violence. Almost all were from Makassar or were Ambonese who had studied there, and many leaders were "alumni Moro", that is, had previous experience in the southern Philippines. They called themselves Laskar Jundullah, not Laskar Mujahidin, although their arrival seems to have preceded establishment of the Laskar Jundullah that Agus Dwikarna headed.87
In the beginning, the ICG source said, they had no modern weapons, but focused on setting up posts of five to ten people, mostly along the north coast, beginning in Hitu and spreading to Mamala, Morela and several other villages. Within a month, they had received automatic weapons and were making daily attacks on Christian villages in the area, usually together with a local force called Laskar Hitu. By July 1999, the ranks of the mujahidin forces had reached 500 in central Maluku (that is, Ambon, Ceram, Saparua and Haruku) but they never exceeded that total.88 Recruits served between six months to a year. The mujahidin headquarters was in Air Kuning, a hilly and forested area where the alumni Moro could instruct recruits in guerrilla tactics. One main difference with Laskar Jihad, indeed, was Laskar Mujahidin’s preference for guerrilla warfare, with formations of about a dozen men carrying out hit-and-run attacks. The aim was frequently to destroy churches or target priests, Christian business people, or other Christian leaders, more than to secure ground as Laskar Jihad was trying to do. The source remembered a hit list of 50 people, 47 of whom were priests.89
After July 1999, Laskar Mujahidin had access to serious arms, such as mortars, grenades, AK-47s, Stiger 5s, and anti-personnel mines. Almost none were obtained in Maluku but rather were packed in paralon (a kind of plastic casing) and frequently brought in by ship from Surabaya. As the vessel approached Ambon harbor, the paralons would be dropped overboard, then picked up by waiting fishing boats.90
The Ambon veteran said that a reason Laskar Mujahidin posts were set up on Buru and Seram (rice-growing areas) was to have a cover for import of fertiliser used in bomb making.91
Laskar Mujahidin, like Laskar Jihad, had links to the army in Maluku but they were mostly through soldiers from the Kulur ethnic group in Saparua. Members of this ethnic group, the source said, were particularly prominent in battalions 731, 732 and 733 of the Indonesian army. Many soldiers were willing to rent out their guns for a daily fee of Rp.2.5 million (about U.S.$250).
Laskar Mujahidin also had a strong presence in North Maluku but the ICG source did not know how many people were involved.
B. Laskar Jundullah in Poso
In the other major conflict area, Poso, the mujahidin forces were known as Laskar Jundullah, but it becomes confusing because many Islamic groups operating out of Central Java, Maluku, and Sulawesi called themselves by the same name, which means "army of Allah." Groups that identified themselves as Laskar Jundullah, for example, appeared in Poso in July and August 2000, after the massacre of some 200 Muslims at the Wali Songo Pesantren in Poso on 3 June 2000.92
The best-known of the Laskar Jundullahs was created in September 2000 as the military wing of KPPSI, the Preparatory Committee for Upholding Islamic Law, under the command of Agus Dwikarna, now detained in the Philippines as a JI member. It was originally conceived of as a religious police that would enforce Islamic law among KPPSI members. In setting up Laskar Jundullah, Dwikarna worked closely with Syawal, the JI member with close ties to the southern Philippines, and with Tamsil Linrung, the man later arrested with Dwikarna in the Philippines in March 2002.93
Laskar Jundullah, while officially based in Makassar, set up its military headquarters in Pendolo, Pamona Selatan, Poso. Its commander there was reportedly Amno Dai, a native of the area who had been a follower of Kahar Muzakkar. He began to recruit former members of Kahar Muzakkar’s Darul Islam rebellion, and those men joined with Laskar Mujahidin forces recruited by Pondok Ngruki.94
The Laskar Jundullah forces reportedly drew on three networks for their recruits. The first was Darul Islam, and in particular, the followers of Sanusi Daris, Kahar Muzakkar’s Defense Minister, who died in Sabah in 1988.95 The recruits associated with Darul Islam would reportedly often go to the Hidayatullah pesantren in Balikpapan before proceeding on to Poso, and many teachers and students from that pesantren reportedly joined Laskar Jundullah themselves.96
The second network was that of the hardline faction of the Indonesian Muslim Students organization (Himpunan Mahasiswa Islam or HMI), known as HMI-MPO. Tamsil Linrung and Agus Dwikarna both had HMI-MPO backgrounds, and many other HMI-MPO members from South Sulawesi joined the jihad in Poso.97
The third network consisted of local Muslims from the Poso area. Among others, these included men from the Komite Perjuangan Muslim Poso (Committee for the Islamic Struggle in Poso) under the command of Adnan Arsal, based in Poso city. Arsal is one of the signers of the December 2001 peace pact for Poso, known as the Malino Accord. The Laskar Mujahidin and Laskar Jundullah forces had both guerrilla training and the capacity for rapid reaction. In Poso, they may have outnumbered Laskar Jihad forces, with which their relations were poor. Laskar Jihad only arrived in Poso in August 2001, long after mujahidin forces were wellestablished. ICG has received conflicting reports as to the continued presence of Laskar Mujahidin in Maluku and Poso. Laskar Jihad sources in Yogyakarta claim that even before the dissolution of their organisation in early October 2002, Laskar Mujahidin had already left, chased out by Laskar Jihad, which was numerically much stronger.98 MMI sources in Solo, however, report that the mujahidin are still in place, if not particularly active.
C. Recruitment
According to one young man close to those who took part in the training camp in Pandeglang, run by Bali bombing suspect Imam Samudra, in Banten in 2001, recruitment for Poso and Ambon took place as follows. A member of Samudra’s group would strike up a conversation with students from a local state-run Islamic high school (madrasah aliyah negeri). These high schools can be located within a pesantren or religious boarding school, or they can be separate structures. The students would be invited to come to a meeting where the discussion leader showed video CDs about the war in Ambon and Poso, made by KOMPAK, the mujahidin-affiliated organisation. The videos inevitably produced outrage from the viewers at the brutality and inhumanity of the Christian side.99
The viewers were then invited back for religious study sessions, where a small number of people sat around in a circle (halaqah) and studied the main precepts of Sungkar’s teaching – faith, hijrah, and jihad – with a strong Wahabi orientation.100 Students who went through the training learned formulaic definitions, such as that what Muslims had to fear most was a government enslaved to infidels. The situation in the world today, it was repeatedly stressed, was like the darkness and ignorance (jahiliyah) prevailing in Mecca before Islam was generally accepted and when Muslims were being persecuted. The group leaders stressed the need to rid the faith of syirik or idolatrous practices. But the most important emphasis was on jihad. After about four months in the study group, the students would be told that jihad was not just a concept but something that had to be put into practice, and they were invited to join the struggle. One of those who accepted said he was surprised when the instructor then introduced a friend from Malaysia and produced firearms for the training. At this stage, the proportion of religious training fell to about 30 per cent, while 70 per cent was devoted to military training.101 The trainees had to start from scratch, learning how to hold a rifle, aim and fire. They were also instructed in self-defence and how to use knives and machetes.
The instructors rented a house far from the main road for the training. In this case, it was in Cimalati, Pasir Eurih, Saketi, a heavily wooded area in Pandeglang, Banten but there was another in Malimping, Banten, and at least one in West Java, in Ciseeng, Bogor. The road leading to the house in Saketi was rarely used by cars or motorcycles-for-hire, and the houses in the area were relatively far apart. The front of the house was turned into a kind of a repair shop, both for camouflage purposes, so no one passing would suspect that there was military training going on in the back, amidst a hectare of palm trees and banana plantation.
The workshop also served as a place where the trainees learned to make bombs. When they were considered ready, they were sent to Poso or Ambon as members of Laskar Mujahidin or related groups. There was never any overlap with Laskar Jihad.
Halaqah study groups, without the military training, were started in at least five other areas around Banten alone: Menes, Ciruas, Kasemen, Benggala and Kramatwatu. Almost all drew on young men from Islamic high schools. Such schools within pesantrens run by Muslim leaders (kyai) with a history of Darul Islam involvement were a particularly rich recruiting ground.
D. Imam Samudra’s Halaqah
Abdul Aziz alias Imam Samudra took part in such a halaqah. Aziz, who was arrested on 21 November as a key suspect in the Bali bombings, was an honors graduate of the state Islamic high school (Madrasah Aliyah Negeri or MAN I) in Serang, Banten. While still a student, he became very close to one of his teachers, Kyai Saleh As’ad, who had been a Darul Islam leader in Banten in the 1970s.102 Abdul Aziz reportedly was radicalised under Saleh As’ad’s tutelage, and became convinced of the justness of the struggle for an Islamic state. In 1988, two years before he graduated from high school, he was chosen as the head of a Banten-wide madrasah association called HOSMA (Himpunan Osis Madrasah Aliah). He used this association to promote Darul Islam ideas among students, through halaqah study groups. He reportedly was particularly effective in recruiting new cadres through a pengajian he started at the Darul Ilmi MAN, close to his own school in Serang.
Almost all the young men that Abdul Aziz apparently recruited as foot soldiers for Bali more than a decade later were products of the MAN schools. A quick look at their biographies shows the ties among them.
Abdul Rauf alias Sam bin Jahruddin was born in Cipodoh, Tangerang, West Java, in 1981. Abdul Aziz met Rauf in 2001 in Bandung through a mutual friend. Rauf at the time was taking courses in journalism but he had attended Pondok Ngruki from 1992 to 1997. He then continued his education from 1997 to 2000 at the Madrasah Aliyah Darul Ilmi, Abdul Aziz’s old recruiting ground. When he met Abdul Aziz, he was reportedly much taken with the latter’s arguments about the need for jihad in Maluku where so many Muslims had been killed. As a result, after he finished his journalism course, Rauf returned to Banten, to the subdistrict (kecamatan) Malimping to devote himself to jihad. There he persuaded Yudi, an old friend from Ngruki, to follow Abdul Aziz’s teachings.
Yudi alias Andri was born in the village of Sukamanah, Malimping, in 1980. After going to a state elementary school, Yudi went to Pondok Ngruki from 1992-1995. Like Abdul Rauf, he went on to Madrasah Darul Ilmi and became the head of the student association there (Ikatan Santri Daar El- Ilmi or ISDI). He also became fluent in Arabic. After graduating, he returned to his village to help his parents sell sandals in the local market. He also started a majelis taklim for local youth, a regularlyscheduled discussion of religious issues open to the general public.
After Abdul Rauf introduced Yudi to Abdul Aziz, the three started a new halaqah that effectively became a new JI cell.103 Yudi brought in several of his majelis taklim students. They included Agus Hidayat, Iqbal, and Amin. At some stage, but the dates are not clear, Yudi, Abdul Rauf, and Amin all reportedly went to Mindanao with Abdul Aziz’s assistance.
Agus Hidayat, another product of the state Islamic school system in Banten – he graduated from MAN in Malimping in 2000 – was arrested on 25 November 2002 in connection with the robbery of a goldsmith’s shop in Serang, Banten. The proceeds of that robbery, in which Abdul Rauf and Yudi were also involved, were allegedly used to finance the Bali operation. Because the victims of the robbery were non-Muslims (Chinese), the robbery was justified as fa’i, legitimate war booty in the context of jihad. Iqbal, alias Armasan alias Lacong, the alleged suicide bomber in Bali, was born in Sukamana, Malimping, the same village as Yudi, in 1980. He finished the second year of junior high school, then was forced to drop out because his family could not pay the school fees. He became a farmer, but because he was Yudi’s neighbor, he was drawn into the halaqah of Yudi and Abdul Rauf.
The cell of Agus Hidayat, Yudi, Abdul Rauf, and Iqbal, went into action on 22 August 2002 when the robbery of the goldsmith’s shop took place. Rauf set off a diversionary firecracker about 100 meters away from the shop. Yudi entered the store with a gun and held up the owner. Iqbal, together with Yudi and one other man, took the gold. Agus Hidayat and Amin stood guard outside and had motorcycles waiting to make the getaway.
Abdul Aziz (Imam Samudra) was the brains of the operation, but did not take part directly. He did, however, supply the weapons. Several firearms, perhaps including those used in the robbery, were found in Agus’s possession when he was arrested, including an FN pistol, a Colt-38, and ammunition produced by the Indonesian army munitions factory, PT Pindad. Just as the West Java Christmas Eve foot soldiers only met Jabir shortly before the target date, Agus only met Abdul Aziz in Solo, Central Java, one week before the robbery.
Apparently because they were both from Banten, however, they quickly became close. A little over a month before the Bali bombings, Abdul Rauf brought three more men into the operation, although they do not appear to have been trusted members of the halaqah. Maybe not coincidentally, none of them shared the same school ties as Yudi, Rauf, and Abdul Aziz.
Aprianto, Pujata, and Ikhwan Fauzi were all from the Kesemen, Serang area of Banten, and their families, like Abdul Aziz’s, had been close to the Persatuan Islam (PERSIS), a long-established Muslim organisation with a Wahabi orientation. All were arrested after the Bali bombings and charged with hiding some of the bomb-making materials for Abdul Rauf. None of the three reportedly ever met Abdul Aziz, but at a designated time, they handed over the materials to a fourth man, Faturrahman, who was a graduate of Abdul Aziz’s alma mater at the MAN Islamic high school in Serang.104
Many of the original halaqah members took part in the Bali operation. Agus Hidayat, together with Abdul Aziz, reportedly did a survey of the targets in Bali. Yudi prepared the bomb together with Abdul Rauf. Iqbal was the person charged with delivering it. The members of the religious study circle in Banten had become terrorists.
E. Maluku’s importance to the JI Network
Just as experience in Afghanistan served to bind an older generation of the JI network together, time in Maluku served the same purpose for a younger generation. Information from some of those convicted in earlier JI bombings provides insight into how this worked.
Taufik Abdul Halim alias Dani, 26, is a Malaysian convicted for his role in the August 2001 Atrium Mall bombing in Jakarta, another JI operation.105 Taufik was born in Muar Johor, Malaysia. According to his court testimony, he studied in religious schools around Pakistan – in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Islamabad – from 1993 to 1996, the same years that Fatur Rahman al-Ghozi was in Lahore. It is not known if they met. Taufik was imprisoned briefly under the Internal Security Act after he returned to Malaysia. The Malaysian government later said that Taufik, whom they accused of being a member of Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia, an organisation alleged to be an affiliate of JI, was in Afghanistan in 1994-1995.106 Taufik’s brother, Zulkifli bin Abdul Hir, is in detention as a JI member in Malaysia and is accused of killing a Christian member of parliament, Dr. Joe Fernandez.
In June 2000, according to his interrogation testimony, Taufik met nine other Malaysian recruits at the Kuala Lumpur airport. These included three men from Trengganu, two from Selangor, two from Kuala Lumpur, one from Pahang, and one from northern Malaysia. Taufik, with an architecture degree, was the only one with an advanced education. The group crossed to Sabah (Malaysian Borneo), travelled overland to Tawao, a seedy port on the southern tip of the state, crossed by boat to Nunukan, East Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) – without passports – then continued to Menado, North Sulawesi by boat. They then flew to Ternate in northern Maluku.
After some three months in Ternate, which to their disappointment was quiet, they went on to Ambon. In court, Taufik would say only that he and his colleagues helped defend villages there; it would be interesting to know whether his contingent was involved in the battle in Siri-Sori when Abu Dzar was killed. In April 2001, six of the original group returned to Malaysia and the others took a boat to Surabaya, then travelled to Jakarta by bus.
A young man who was to take part in the Atrium bombing with Taufik met him at the bus station, then took him to stay with another Maluku veteran, Eddy or Dedi Setiono alias Abbas alias Usman. Abbas was from Bogor originally, had lived for many years in Malaysia, and made his living selling mineral water in Jakarta. Dedi had been with Hambali in Afghanistan in 1987 and met him again in South Jakarta in October 2000 to plan the Christmas Eve bombings. After his "success" as field commander for Jakarta of the latter operation, Abbas worked with Imam Samudra to coordinate the Atrium Mall bombing in early August 2001. Taufik was an expendable foot soldier.
The rationale for the Atrium bombing was retaliation for the attacks on Muslims in Ambon, since a congregation that was reputed to be funding the Christian side met for services on the second floor of the mall. The bomb went off prematurely, and Taufik lost part of his leg.
After both he and Taufik were caught, Abbas told his interrogators of the training camp in Pandeglang, Banten, described above, where recruits for Ambon were being trained. Police raided the camp in September 2001 and captured thirteen people, mostly young men from the Banten area. They also recovered six revolvers, seven FN pistols, and 400 rounds of ammunition. One camp leader who escaped was a 38-year-old man named Ibrahim from Trengganu, Malaysia, who had served two years in Afghanistan.
IX. Conclusion
The investigation into the Bali bombings is beginning to uncover some of the ways in which Jemaah Islamiyah leaders were able to use a range of networks and associations in Indonesia to wage jihad in accordance with Abdullah Sungkar’s teachings.
The investigation is far from over but one can see a mix of family ties, old school ties (to Pondok Ngruki or its Malaysian counterpart, Pesantren Luqmanul Hakiem), and Darul Islam linkages at play. The reach of JI through these networks may be more extensive than previously thought, even though the number of senior JI leaders appears to be very small.
When the results of the Bali bombings are considered, together with an examination of previous JI operations such as the Christmas Eve bombings, several policy imperatives arise.
Investigations into all previous JI operations need to be reopened, with the highly effective combination of international investigators working alongside their Indonesian counterparts, under Indonesian direction.
If the Christmas Eve bombing investigations are any indication, investigations at the time were poor.
Police often used torture to extract confessions that were highly unreliable as a result but were then used to convict other suspects. Little, if any, coordination took place among the investigations into the bombings of different cities across the countries, so that common threads could be exposed and examined. Important leads were not pursued.
There is some indication that the investigations are being reopened, but if this amounts to reinterviewing convicted prisoners, as seems to be the case in Medan, the results will be inconclusive, since none of those convicted was a major player, and two were probably not involved at all.
Intelligence resources need to be strengthened but the resources need to go to the police, not to the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) and not to army intelligence.
There is no question that BIN has done some important legwork on the investigations that significantly helped break open the Bali case, and it is using the Bali bombings to try to significantly increase its resources. According to one press report, a draft presidential instruction is being prepared to create new intelligence structures, one at the national level and one at the provincial and district level. The first would coordinate intelligence agencies belonging to the Attorney General’s Office, police, customs, immigration, relevant units from each branch of the armed forces, and BIN. The second would do the same but at a sub-national level. All would be coordinated by the head of BIN, A.M. Hendropriyono.107
Coordination is important, and there is no question that it is not now taking place. But creating a new structure would put the cart before the horse. Major issues need to be resolved first, such as the exact division of responsibility between the police and the army on internal security matters. No amount of coordination on paper is going to force an army officer to turn over information to the police, or vice versa, when each force sees the other as determined to undermine its authority. One provincial army intelligence officer told ICG, "We’re sitting on all this information, and no one’s asking for it". He suggested that unless and until the post-Soeharto tendency to leave investigations to the police was reversed, the information would stay unused.108 At the same time, the professional pride of the police is at an all-time high with the Bali successes. This may be the first time that police are taking pride across the country as a force getting results through dogged pursuit of leads, rather than money or coercion. If ever there were a moment for strengthening civilian law enforcement agencies, it is now, but it has to be done with strong civilian oversight mechanisms.
One intelligence officer in eastern Indonesia told ICG he had no money to pay informants, and even though he strongly suspected a military training camp was in operation not far from his office, he had no funds to pay anyone to try and find out what was going on.
Lack of resources for intelligence gathering is a serious issue, particularly in remote areas, but without adequate controls, extra resources are going to be consumed by corruption.
The government needs to get far more serious than it has about controlling leakage of weapons, ammunition, and explosives from Indonesian military depots. Much of the weaponry and explosives used by JI was purchased abroad but not all of it, and trial documents, not only from the Christmas Eve bombings but also from other bombings such as that of the Jakarta Stock Exchange, show how the arms trade is flourishing in Bandung and Batam. The Indonesian government might want to consider setting up a commission with advice or input from some of the international investigators working on the Bali case about how this trade can best be curbed.
A major unanswered question remains what happens after Maluku and Poso?
It would be a valuable contribution to the conflict resolution efforts in both areas to understand exactly what role groups like the Laskar Mujahidin have played and what havoc they can continue to wreak.
End notes
1 ICG Indonesia Briefing, Al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia: The Case of the "Ngruki Network" in Indonesia, 8 August 2002.
2 See, for example, "New Picture Emerges of Militant Network in Southeast Asia – Jemaah Islamiyah Aided al- Qaeda But Has Own Agenda: Islamic State," Asian Wall Street Journal, 9 August 2002 and Tony Lopez "What is JI?" Manila Times, 1 November 2002.
3 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Singapore, "MFA Press Statement on the Request for Addition of Jemaah Islamiah to List of Terrorists Maintained by the UN", 23 October 2002.
4 Ibid.
5 "Jamaah Islamiyah operating in Indonesia: Police", Jakarta Post, 30 November 2002
6 Since the 1970s, Abdullah Sungkar had preached the need for a new organisation that could work more effectively to achieve an Islamic state, and he called this organisation Jamaah Islamiyah. Key elements were recruitment, education, obedience, and jihad. But there were arguments and debates within the Darul Islam movement about who should lead the new organisation and where it fit within the movement more generally. See Muhamad Nursalim, Faksi Abdullah Sungkar Dalam Gerakan NII Era Orde Baru, thesis to meet the requirements of S2 (Master’s Degree) at Universitas Muhammadiyah Solo, 2001. The JI formed in Malaysia followed a dispute within the Darul Islam leadership when Sungkar broke with an Indonesia-based DI leader named Ajengan Masduki. The new JI appears to have been a much more tightly structured organisation than anything Sungkar was involved in in the past, but very much based on his teachings.
7 Martin van Bruinessen, "Geneaologies of Islamic Radicalism in Post-Suharto Indonesia", ISIM and Utrecht University, 2002,p. 3. See www.let.uu.nl/~martin.vanbruinessen/personal.
8 ICG interview, Jakarta, 28 November 2002.
9" Hasil Interogasi Terhadap Tersangka M. Rozi al. Amrozi al. Chairul Anom sampai dengan jam 13:30 WIB Tanggal 6 Nopember 2002," p.2
10 Questioning of Abu Bakar Ba’asyir by Indonesian police intelligence, 2002 (copy obtained by ICG, with date and name of investigator removed).
11 ICG interviews, Surabaya, 7 and 9 November 2002.
12 Irfan Suryahardy has been close to Ba’asyir since the early 1980s when he was the editor of a Muslim newsletter in Yogyakarta. He was arrested by the Soeharto government on subversion charges. Mursalin Dahlan is a Muslim preacher who is the head of the West Java branch of a small Islamic political party, Partai Umat Islam.
13 ICG interview, Surabaya 7 November 2002.
14 The website, www.istimata.com, was recommended by Samudra in an interview published in "15 Menit Bersama Imam Samudra", Kompas, 5 December 2002.
15 ICG interviews, Surabaya, 7 November 2002, and Solo, 26 November 2002; also see "Confessions of an al-Qaeda Terrorist", Time, 23 September 2002. Al-Faruq, allegedly a Kuwaiti national (although the Kuwaiti government denied he was a citizen), is a senior al-Qaeda operative who lived in Indonesia for several years and apparently was active creating or supporting JI cells in Indonesia and the Philippines. As of December 2002, he was in U.S. custody, reportedly at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.
16 "Cerita dari Mosaik Bomb Natal," Tempo, 25 February 2001, pp.60-80.
17 Dian Intannia, "Ba’asyir Restui Bob Natal", detik.com, 29 October 2002.
18 Surat Pernyataan, Faiz Bin Abu Bakar Bafana, a deposition taken at the Indonesian embassy in Singapore on 4 September 2002, N°6006/KONS/LEG/0902.
19 Dian Intannia, op. cit.
20 Agus Dwikarna, a businessman from Makassar, also led Laskar Jundullah, an armed force that reportedly deployed fighters to the conflicts in Poso, Central Sulawesi, and Maluku. He was detained in the Philippines in March 2002; Omar al-Faruq’s telephone number was found on his cell phone.
21 ICG interview, Jakarta, 21 November 2002.
22 See ICG Briefing, Al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia, op. cit., pp. 15-16.
23 Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM), the Free Papua Movement, has been fighting for an independent Aceh since 1976.
24 Tgk is an abbreviation for the Acehnese honorific Teungku, usually denoting a religious leader. For more on Darul Islam, see ICG Briefing, Al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia, op. cit. Although initially quite separate from Darul Islam, Daud Beureueh’s movement later affiliated with the Darul Islam movement based in West Java and South Sulawesi.
25 ICG interviews, Jakarta, 25 and 28 November 2002.
26 ICG communication with associate of Daud Beureueh, 28 November 2002. Haji Ismail Pranoto was accused by the Soeharto government of being the head of Komando Jihad.
27 "Saya Memang Dekat TNI", Tempo, 4 March 2001, p. 35. Hasbi denies that he was an informer but says the military requested his assistance to help maintain security in Aceh.
28 The tensions apparently related to opportunities for training in Libya. According to Fauzi Hasbi’s account, Husaini made contact with Libya and learned that military training was being offered there for would-be Muslim separatists. There was a choice of six-month, eight-month, or twelve-month training, and each trainee received a cash payment of U.S.$5,000 on completion of the course. Husaini and the people around him wanted to send more educated people, Hasan di Tiro was worried that if educated people were sent, they might think for themselves and challenge di Tiro’s rule. ICG interview, 25 November 2002.
29 See Laporan Khusus Nomor R/19/Lapsus/Pulak/V/1985 tentang Hasil Pengungkapan Kegiatan Eka Dalam Kasus Peledakan Bus Pemudi Expres di Banyuwangi Tanggal, 16 Maret 1985.
30 In Sulawesi, he stayed with Sanusi Daris just before he was arrested; Sanusi had been Kahar Muzakkar’s defense minister in the South Sulawesi Darul Islam rebellion. 31 ICG interview, 25 November 2002.
32 Teuku is another Acehnese honorific, not to be confused with Teungku, denoting a religious scholar. Tk. Idris is not the same as another Indonesian named Idris from Medan, who is being sought in connection with the Bali bombings. A police sketch of this Idris, showing a heavyset man with droopy eyelids, has been widely circulated.
33 According to Sofyan Daud, a GAM spokesman, Idris was a former GAM member who went over to the faction of Arjuna, an MP-GAM member with close ties to the army. See "GAM Bantah Terlibat Jaringan Mujahidin," Koran Tempo, 21 October 2002.
34 "What is the Free Aceh Movement?", Inside Indonesia, 25 November 1999. Fauzi Hasbi named Arjuna as one of his followers in a 1999 interview. See "Kami Akan Berperang Melawan Hasan Tiro", Tajuk, Vol. 2, N°21, p.34.
35 Free Acheh Movement in Europe, "Condolences on the Assassination of Teuku Don Zulfahri", signed by Dr. Husaini Hasan, 1 June 2000.
36 Present in addition to Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, according to another person who was there, were the JI inner core of Hambali, Abu Fatih, Ustadz Muklas, A. Umar, Aziz Kahar Muzakkar, Ali A.T. and Hasan Kamal; Agus Dwikarna and Tamsil Linrung; Eri Djunaidy, Lamkaruna Putra (Fauzi Hasbi’s son), and Faturrahman from Republik Islam Aceh; Tk. Idris, and his younger brother, Tgk. Muhammed from MP-GAM; a man known as Abu Huraerah from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front; Ustadz Salim Ullah, another Afghanistan veteran, from the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation; Nik Adli and one other man from PAS, Malaysia; Abu Hafiz Ismael and one other man from PULO, Thailand; a Darul Islam representive from Indonesia;and Nurul Islam from the Arakanese Rohingya Nationalist Organisation (ARNO). The latter four, according to the ICG source, were opposed to the use of violence. ICG interview, Jakarta, 21 November 2002. Faiz bin Abu Bakar Bafana told Singaporean authorities that the first meeting of RM took place in his house in Selangor but that may have been just before or after the university meeting for a more select group. As far as we know, Fauzi Hasbi did not attend the gathering at Bafana’s house.
37 ICG Interview, Jakarta, 9 December 2002.
38 "Cerita dari Mosaik" op. cit.
39 "Fauzi Hasbi Geudong: Saya Memang Dekat TNI," Tempo, 4 March 2001.
40 The others named as co-conspirators were Zukarnaini, Iswandi, Herianto, Tgk. Iskandar, Ayah Muda, Syaiful, and Marzuki. See "Perakit Bom Dituntut Hukuman Mati", Kompas, 17 April 2001 and "Perakit Bom Natal Divonis 11 Tahun", Kompas, 15 August 2001.
41 ICG interview, Medan, 22 November 2002.
42 In 1986, he left Aceh for Malaysia and worked there for about a year before leaving for Tripoli. He spent six months in Libya, divided between studying at al-Fatah University in Tripoli and some military training, and returned to Aceh in July 1988. In August 1990, he was arrested in Takengon during the first wave of the Indonesian army’s counterinsurgency operations. (See Human Rights Watch, "Indonesia: Continuing Human Rights Violations in Aceh", 19 June 1991, p. 23.) He was only released after President Soeharto’s resignation, in an amnesty granted by Soeharto’s successor, B.J. Habibie, and he immediately returned to an active role within GAM.
43 Kepolisian Daerah Sumatera Utara, Direktorat Reserse, Berita Acara Pemeriksaan Ligadinsyah, 10 January 2001, p. 2.
44 Kepolisian Daerah Sumatera Utara, Direktorat Reserse, Berita Acara Pemeriksaan Tambahan tersangka Edy Sugiharto [sic] 13 January 2001.
45 Kepolisian Daerah Sumatera Utara, Direktorat Reserse, Berita Acara Pemeriksaan Saksi Ir. Ligadinsyah alias Lingga alias Azis, 10 January 2001, p.2.
46 Ibid.
47 Ramli’s father, who died in about 1995, was known as Tgk. Ali and had been a Darul Islam fighter. He was from Lhokputu, Pidie but there is no reason to think that he knew what was being planned.
48 ICG interview, 22 November 2002.
49 "Cerita dari Mosaik", op. cit.
50 Kepolisian Daerah Sumatera Utara, Direktorat Reserse, Berita Acara Pemeriksaan Saksi Ramli Ali, 12 January 2001.
51 "Bom Guncang Riau", Riau Pos, 29 December 2000.
52 Dian Intannia, "Ba’asyir Restui Bom Natal", op. cit.
53 The prosecutor requested ten years on 30 April 2002 but ICG was not able to obtain information on the final verdict. See "Pembawa Bom Dituntut 10 Tahun Penjara", Sijori Pos, 30 April 2002.
54 "Memburu Kudama, Aktor Berbilang Terorisme," Tempo, 18-24 November 2002, p.29.
55 "Jejak Al Farouq di Kepulauan Riau", Forum Keadilan, N°32, 24 November 2002, p.89.
56 Ibid, p.90.
57 Hendropriyono initiated the reconciliation program when he was Minister of Transmigration. Some families were offered funds under the program, of whom about half declined. These families, many of whom originally had gone to Way Jepara from Pondok Ngruki, returned to Ngruki and were resettled there. Another large group accepted the islah offer and were transmigrated to Sumbawa. Some who accepted later felt that they had been tricked.
58 Sources differ as to whether Umar alias Wayan is from Sumbawa or Flores. Sumbawa is cited in "Memetik Pelajaran di Malaysia," Gatra, 30 November 2002, p. 33.
59 ICG Briefing, Al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia, op. cit., pp.15- 16.
60 al-Ustadz Abdul Qadir Baraja’, Gambaran Global Pemerintahan Islam, Rayyan al Baihaqi Press, Surabaya, 2001.
61 ICG interview, Taliwong, 2 November 2002. Indonesia Backgrounder: How The Jemaah Islamiyah Terrorist Network Operates
62 Ibid.
63 ICG interview, Jakarta, 21 November 2002.
64 Ky. Saeful Malik belongs to the Abdul Fatah Wiranggapati faction of Darul Islam. For an overview of the various factions within DI, see Umar Abduh, Al-Zaytun Gate, op.cit.
65 "Cerita dari Mosaik", op. cit., p.64.
66 Forum Indonesia Damai "Investigasi Tersangka Peledakan BOM di Sukabumi," 7-9 January 2001, unpublished notes. 67 Akim, about 30 years old, was from Cikalang, Tasikmalaya. Between 1987 and 1991, he had lived in Afghanistan, and went from Afghanistan to Malaysia, where he met Hambali. Akim also had two tours of duty in Ambon as a member of the Laskar Mujahidin forces between late 1999 and 2001. It is not clear when he returned to West Java from Afghanistan but when he did, probably sometime in the late 1990s, he joined a militant group called Barigade Taliban or Taliban Brigade, led by Kyai Zenzen Zaenal (Jainal) Muttaqin Atiq. Kyai Zenzen appears on a list of officers of the Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI) as a member of the Education and Culture Committee of the religious council (Ahlul Halli Wal Aqdi). According to Kyai Zenzen, the Taliban Brigade was an organisation dedicated to the eradication of places of vice. Its methods resembled those of the Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam or FPI) in Jakarta. Kyai Zenzen, who is the head of Pesantren al-Irsyadiyah in Tasikmalaya, is close to another senior MMI official, Kyai Asep Maoshul Affandi, the son of an old Darul Islam leader, Haji Khoir Affandi. Kyai Asep Maoshul is the deputy to Irfan Awwas Suryahardy in the executive council of the MMI. See Risalah Kongres Mujahidin I dan Penegakan Syariat Islam (Yogyakarta, January 2001) and ICG communication, October 2002.
68 "Cerita dari Mosaik", op. cit., p.64.
69 "Berita Acara Pemeriksaan Saksi Didin alias Aceng Didin alias Iqbaluzzaman" in Kepolisian Negara Republik Indonesia, Daerah Jawa Barat, Wilayah Kota Besar Bandung, No. Pol. B/02/I/2001 Serse, Berkas Perkara atas nama Rony Milyar, 29 January 2001. This seems an odd way to start a conversation after two years and suggests there may have been more of a history between Jabir and Iqbal than Iqbal conceded in his interrogation deposition.
70 Ibid. The official version of Iqbal’s testimony has him telling prosecutors that Jabir asked for help in finding a place to make bombs. ICG obtained a copy of the testimony with Iqbal’s handwritten corrections, saying in fact that Jabir had asked him for a place to conduct activities related to the fasting month, Ramadan. Both versions agree that Jabir asked him to find six people, which Iqbal agreed to do. The official version says the six people were needed to make bombs; Iqbal suggests in his corrections that Jabir wanted six people for discussion of possible business opportunities.
71 Ibid. Iqbal, in handwritten notes on his own witness testimony, denies Hambali ever raised the issue.
72 He told police interrogators that he went to Afghanistan at NII (Negara Islam Indonesia) expense, meaning that funds were probably channeled through Abdullah Sungkar in Malaysia, although Dedi’s contact was a man named Hamzah in Jakarta. Forum Indonesia Damai, "Hasil Keterangan Tersangka Dedi Mulyadi di BAP", unpublished notes, January 2001.
73 Forum Indonesia Damai, "Hasil Sementara Investigasi Peledakan di Pangandaran," undated but probably early 2001.
74 Ibid.
75 Forum Indonesia Damai, "Hasil Keterangan Tersangka Dedi Mulyadi di BAP", unpublished notes, January 2001.
76 "Berita Acara Pemeriksaan Saksi Agus Kurniawan", op. cit.
77 Ibid.
78 Ibid.
79 "Hasil Interogasi Terhadap Tersangka M.Rozi alias Amrozi alias Chairul Anom Sampai Dengan Jam 13:30 WIB Tanggal 6 Nopember 2002."
80 See ICG Briefing, Al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia, op. cit.
81 ICG interview, Jakarta, 21 November 2002.
82 "Menebak Bela Diri di Gunung Tembak", Tempo, 1 Desember 2002, pp. 36-37.
83 Ibid, p.36.
84 ICG interview, Jakarta, 25 November 2002.
85 His death is shown in a VCD produced by Aris Munandar of Pondok Ngruki for KOMPAK; it took place in a fight with Christian forces in Siri-Sori, Saparua, on 26 October 2000.
86 .Polri Daerah Metro Jaya dan Sekitarnya, Resort Metropolitan Jakarta Utara, Berita Acara Pemeriksaan Tersangka Ujang Aris bin Amin, 10 November 2001.
87 ICG interview, Jakarta, 30 November 2002.
88 The source said that the initial posts were in Lei Hitu: Hitu, Mamala, Morela, Seith, Wakal, Liang, Wai,, Tengah-Tengah, Tial, Tulehu, Wakasihu, Larike, Wayame, and Negeri Lima. In Lei Timur, they set up posts in Air Kuning, Galunggung, Kebun Cengkeh, Waihoka, Batu Merah, Kantui, Kapaha, Jalan Baru, Waihong, Soa Bali, Talake, Pohon Mangga and Air Salobar. On Buru, the LM post was in Namlea. On Seram, post were set up in Masohi, Kairatu, Sepa, Wahai, Sawai, Pamahai, Luhu, and Geser Gorong. On Saparua, there were posts in Kulur, Iha, and Siri-Sori Islam, where Abu Dzar died. Finally, on Haruku Island, there were posts in Kailolo, Kabau, Rohomoni and Ori. Each post had about five men, maximum ten.
89 ICG interview, Jakarta, 30 November 2002.
90 Another incident of weapons found in paralons is linked directly to Bali. On 11 November 2002, paralons were found in the Dadapan forest near Lamongan, East Java. They are believed to have been acquired by Ali Imron, Amrozi’s brother, for use in Ambon by Laskar Mujahidin Ali Imron is a 1997 Pondok Ngruki graduate and suspected JI member. "Tim Investigasi Temukan M-16, FN, dan Amunisi", Kompas, 12 November 2002.
91 ICG interview, Jakarta, 30 November 2002.
92 See Lorraine Aragon, "Communal Violence in Poso, Central Sulawesi: Where People Eat Fish and Fish Eat People," Indonesia, N°72, October 2001 (Cornell Southeast Asia Project), pp.45-80.
93 Tamsil Linrung was freed shortly thereafter. He was treasurer of the National Mandate Party (PAN) at the time of his arrest. Linrung also took part in the founding meeting of Abu Bakar Ba’asyir’s International Mujahidin Association in late 1999.
94 It is difficult to assess the strength of these forces with any accuracy. One source told ICG that the combined total of men who had served in Poso as either Laskar Jundullah or Laskar Mujahidin was about 5,000, but many of those served only three months at a time. The same source said the forces included about thirty Moros.
95 For details on the links between Sanusi Daris and Abdullah Sungkar, see ICG Briefing, Al Qaeda in Southeast Asia, op. cit.
96 ICG Interview, 4 December 2002.
97 HMI-MPO broke from HMI over the issue of President Soeharto’s "Pancasila only" policy, declared in 1985, when all organizations, including Islamic ones, had to adopt Pancasila as their ideological basis. The main body of HMI went along with the policy, HMI-MPO rejected it and split with HMI in 1986.
98 ICG interview, Jakarta, 26 November 2002.
99 ICG interview, Depok, 27 November 2002. Aris Mundandar, a Ngruki teacher and top aide to Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, produced many of the tapes in his capacity as head of KOMPAK. Some of the tapes would conclude with an address where money could be sent to support the struggle.
100 In this case, hijrah meant moving from a non-Islamic community to a community where the ideal Islamic life could be lived.
101 ICG interview, Depok, 27 November 2002.
102 As a DI leader from Banten, Kyai Saleh As’ad was in the same regional command as Panji Gumelang, alias Abu Toto, leader of a controversial Muslim boarding school, in Indramayu, West Java called Az-Zaitun or Al-Zaytun. This extremely well-endowed school has state-of-the art facilities and a huge campus. Panji Gumilang has been described as something akin to a cult leader, encouraging students to show loyalty to himself and not to their parents, insisting that only imams from the school can lead prayers, encouraging the collection of money including by duping unsuspecting victims. Panji Gumilang was a leader of the West Java branch of Darul Islam known as KWIX.
103 If a majelis taklim was by definition open, a halaqah was closed and restricted to members of the circle.
104 "Poros Banten-Solo di Belakang Imam", Tempo, 8 December 2002.
105 Like most people involved in the network, Taufik had many aliases: Dodi Mulia, Doni, Yudi Mulia Purnomo, and Herman, in addition to Dani.
106 Taufik Andre, "Puzzle Bomb", Pantau, Vol 3, N°25 May 2002.
107 "BIN Akan Buka Cabang Hingga ke Daerah," Koran Tempo, 27 November 2002.
108 ICG interview, 22 November 2002.
109 Much of the information in this appendix comes from notes taken by a group called Forum Indonesia Damai, which conducted extensive interviews with eyewitnesses in the days and weeks that followed the bombings.
Appendix A
Partial list of bombings in Indonesia attributed to Jemaah Islamiyah
(This list does not include bombings that took place in Maluku or Poso)
I. Istiqlal Mosque, Jakarta 19 April 1999
II. Residence of the Philippines Ambassador, Jakarta, 1 August 2000
(Two died, Fathur Rahman al-Gozi, Abdul Jabar among those believed responsible.)
(Malaysian Embassy, Jakarta, 27 August 2000 (not attributed to JI but should be re-examined) (Jakarta Stock Exchange, 13 September 2000 (not attributed to JI but should be re-examined) III. Christmas Eve bombings, 24 December 2000109
1. Jakarta
(a) Jakarta Cathedral, Lapangan Banteng. Bomb went off between 8:55 and 9:10 pm. It was placed about two metres to the right of the entrance of the church, apparently under a car. Caused bluewhite smoke and left little trace. A team from the police forensics lab found another eight kg bomb that had not exploded on the ground near the front gate of the church. It was equipped with a small alarm clock as a timer.
(b) Kanisius Church, Jl. Menteng Raya, two explosions between 8:45 and 8:50 pm that wounded five. First caused thick black smoke, second exploded with a red flame. The explosions took place after the first mass had finished.
(c) Santo Yosef Church, Jl. Matraman Raya No.129. Bomb went off at 8:55 pm. It gave off white smoke that then turned into very thick black smoke. The explosive contained bits of metal that wounded many of the victims. Four were killed, eighteen wounded, and there was substantial material damage: fourteen cars, one foodstall, one cart selling tahu, and one bus stop shelter. The bomb went off under a tree near the back gate about 20 metres from the Marsudirini convent. The type of bomb was never identified. (d) Oikumene Protestant Christian Church, Jl. Komodor, Halim Perdanakusuma. Bomb went off at 9:10 pm while a service was underway, wounding a fouryear- old girl. Not clear where the bomb was placed but the smoke from the explosion came into the church from under the main door and from a window that had been broken from pellet shot (not clear when). The bomb left a small crater, about five cm deep and some 45 cm across. One car was destroyed, three others damaged.
(e) Koinonia Church, Jatinegara. Bomb went off between 7:15 and 7:45 pm. Two men from Polres, one named Sgt. Cipto, were guarding church. Area was fairly deserted save for a few vendors, a parked car and two cigarette sellers in front of the church. The bomb was placed in a Microlet with license plate B2955W, that had been emptied of passengers. The driver died, and a woman named Sumiati Tampubolon was wounded. The type of bomb was never identified, but it left thick grey smoke and a crater about 70 cm across.
(f) Anglican Church, Jl. Arif Rahman Hakim, Menteng
2. Bekasi
Protestant church, Jl. Gunung Gede Raya. Bomb went off around 9:05 p.m. Two other bombs were disabled by the Gegana team of the Bekas policei.
All three were buried in the ground in a yard that functioned as a parking lot. The bomb containing pellets was placed in a box and wrapped with a black plastic bag, then placed in a hole about 30 cm deep and 50 cm across. The hole was then covered with stones and trash. A pager was used as a timer. The pellets wounded three bystanders.
3. Bandung
Bomb went off at a ruko (dwelling over a shop) on Jl. Terusan Jakarta, Cicadas, Antapani about 3:00 p.m. killing three of the would-be bombers.
4. Sukabumi
(a) Sidang Kristus Church, Jl. Alun-Alun Utara. Bomb went off about 9:10 pm.
(b) Huria Kristen Batak Protestan Church on Jl. Otista
5. Ciamis
Jl Pantai Pengandaran in front of Hotel Surya Kencana, Dusun Banuasin RT 09/04 Kec. Pangandaran, Kab. Ciamis. Exploded prematurely about 6:20 p.m.
6. Pekanbaru
(a) HKBP Church on Jl. Hang Tuah
(b) Church on Jl. Sidomulyo
(c) Third church, on Jl. Ahmand Dahlan, Gg Horas, Kel. Kedungsari, Sukajadi, targeted not on Christmas Eve but on 28 December 2002.
7. Batam
(a) Protestant Church, Simalungun (GKPS) Sei Panas
(b) Bethel Indonesia Church (GBI) Bethany, My Mart Carnival Mall
(c) Pentecostal Church of Indonesia, on Jl. Pelita
(d) Santo Beato Church, Damian, Bengkong
8. Medan
(a) Protestant Church of Indonesia, Jl. Sriwijaya
(b) GKPS Stadion Teladan
(c) Kemenangan Iman Indonesia Church (GKII) Hasanudin
(d) GKII Sisingmanagaraja
(e) HKBPChurch Sudirman
(f) Santo Paulus Church, Jl HM Joni
(g) Cathedral Church, Jl. Pemuda
(h) Kristus Raja Church, Jl. MT Haryono
(i) Home of Pastor James Hood, Jl. Merapi
(j) Home of Pastor Oloan Pasaribu, Jl. Sriwijaya
(k) Catholic vicarage, Jl. Hayam Wuruk
9. Pematang siantar
(a) Home of pastor Elisman Sibayak, Jl. Kasuari
(b) Gereja HKBP Damai, Jl. Asahan
(c) Home of a pastor in the Kalam Kudus Church, Jl. Supomo
(d) Unidentified building on Jl. Merdeka
10. Mojokerto
(a) Santo Yoseph Church, Jl. Pemuda. The bombs went off at 8:30.
(b) Kristen Allah Baik Church, Jl. Cokroaminoto. The explosion took place around 8:30 pm
(c) Kristen Ebinezer Church, Jl. Kartini, Gg I
(d) Bethany Church, Jl Pemuda
11. Mataram
(a) Protestant Church of Western Indonesia (GPIB) Imanuel, Jl Bung Karno. Bomb went off about 10:05. It had been placed in front of the pastor’s house, at the back of the church on the eastern side near an empty lot. A second bomb was defused by police. The first gave off a smell of gunpowder and black smoke for about 30 minutes. It left a hole about fifteen cm across.
(b) Pentecostal Church Pusat Surabaya (GPPS) Betlehem, Jl. Pemuda No one was around when the bombs went off. The first bomb went off near the front corner of the church; the second was near an empty lot in the eastern part of the church complex.
(c) Christian cemetery, Kapiten, Ampenan. Bomb went off about 10:05 p.m.
IV. Bombing of Gereja HKBP and Gereja Santa Ana, Jakarta, 22 July 2001
V. Atrium Mall bombing, Jakarta, 1 August 2001. (Second Atrium Mall bombing 23 September 2001, not attributed to JI, should be re-examined) (Hand grenade thrown into Australian International School in Pejaten, South Jakarta, 6 November 2001, not attributed to JI at the time, should be re-examined)
VII. Gereja Petra, North Jakarta, 9 November 2001
VIII. Grenade Explosion near U.S. Embassy Warehouse, Jakarta, 23 September 2002
IX. Sari Club and Paddy’s Café, Bali, 12 October 2002
Appendix B
Index of names and organisations
Abbas. One of the aliases of the Atrium Mall bomber, Dedi or Eddy Setiono. See Dedi. Abdul Azis Kahar Muzakkar. (Qahhar Mudzakkar). Son of former Darul Islam commander Kahar Muzakkar; head of KPSI, Komite Pengerakan Syariat Islam (Committee to Uphold Islamic Law) in Makassar, South Sulawesi. Head of Hidayatullah pesantren in Makassar, a branch of the main Hidayatullah pesantren in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan.
Abdul Aziz alias Imam Samudra. Key suspect in the Bali bombings, arrested 21 November 2002. Born in Serang, Banten, graduated with highest honors in 1990 from the Madrasah Aliyah Negeri (MAN) I in Serang. In 1988, he became head of a Banten-wide association of madrasahs called HOSMA (Himpunan Osis Madrasah Aliyah). He was also known within the madrasah association as a religious activist and reportedly became radicalized by one of the teachers at his high school, former Darul Islam leader Kyai Saleh As'ad. Abdul Aziz left for Malaysia in 1990. His parents, Ahmad Sihabudin and Embay Badriyah, were strong supporters of the Muslim organization, PERSIS.
Abdul Jabar. Suspect in August 2000 attack on Philippines Ambassador's residence in Jakarta and Christmas Eve 2000 bombings in Jakarta. Married to a woman from Dompu, Sumbawa, protected by her family, and believed as of late 2002 to still be hiding in the area.
Abdul Qadir Baraja. Born 10 August 1944 in Taliwong, Sumbawa, former head of Darul Islam- Lampung in 1970s, former lecturer at Pondok Ngruki. Arrested twice, once in January 1979 in connection with Teror Warman, served three years, then arrested and sentenced to thirteen years in connection with bombings in East Java and Borobodur in early 1985. Founded Khilafatul Muslimin, an organization dedicated to the restoration of the Islamic caliphate in 1997. Took part in founding of Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia in August 2000 but is not an active member of MMI.
Abdul Rauf alias Sam bin Jahruddin. Bali bombings suspect, member of JI cell with Imam Samudra. Born in Cipodoh, Tangerang, West Java, in 1981, he met Abdul Aziz alias Imam Samudra in 2001 in Bandung through a mutual friend. Rauf at the time was taking courses in journalism, but he had attended Pondok Ngruki from 1992 to 1997. Reportedly helped make the Bali bombs.
Abdullah Sungkar. Co-founder of Pondok Ngruki (Pesantren al-Mukmin) outside Solo, Central Java and Pesantren Luqmanul Hakiem in Johor, Malaysia. Born in 1937 to a well-known family of batik traders of Yemeni descent in Solo. Detained briefly in 1977 for urging abstention in national elections, then arrested with Abu Bakar Ba'asyir in 1978 on subversion charges for alleged involvement in Komando Jihad/Darul Islam. Fled to Malaysia in 1985, founded Jemaah Islamiyah about 1995, died in Indonesia in November 1999.
Abdullah Syafi’ie. Commander of armed forces of the Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka or GAM), killed by Indonesian army in early 2002.
Abdurrahman. Alias used by Abdul Aziz alias Imam Samudra in Batam bombings of December 2001.
Abu Bakar Ba’syir. Co-founder with Abdullah Sungkar of Pondok Ngruki, active in al-Irsyad organization, born in 1938 in Jombang, East Java, fled in Malaysia in 1985, returned to Indonesia after Soeharto resigned. Helped found International Mujahidin Association (Robitatul Mujahidin or RM) in Malaysia in late 1999, and Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI) in August 2000. Allegedly inherited leadership of Jemaah Islamiyah from Abdullah Sungkar when latter died in 1999 but considered insufficiently radical by JI membership. As of mid-October 2002, under arrest in Jakarta on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities.
Abu Dzar. Nom de guerre for Haris Fadillah, commander of Laskar Mujahidin forces in Maluku until he was killed on 26 October 2000 in Siri-Sori Islam, Saparua. Father-in-law of Omar al-Faruq, father of Mira Agustina. He was of mixed Makassarese-Malay blood, born in Labo Singkep, Riau.
Abu Fatih. Nom de guerre for Abdullah Anshori alias Ibnu Thoyib, alleged to be one of the top JI leaders. Fled to Malalysia in June 1986, joined Abdullah Sungkar and Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, reportedly helped recruit volunteers for Afghanistan. From Pacitan, East Java, he is brother of Abdul Rochim, a teacher at Ngruki.
Abu Hasbi Geudong. See Hasbi Geudong.
Abu Jibril. See Fikiruddin.
Abu Jihad. See Fauzi Hasbi.
Agus Dwikarna. Born in Makassar on 11 August 1964, head of Laskar Jundullah, detained in the Philippines in March 2002 and convicted on charges of illegal possession of explosives, suspected of involvement in bombings in Manila and Jakarta on the basis of information extracted from Fathur Rahman al-Gozi, an Indonesian also detained in the Philippines. Dwikarna was active in the political party, PAN, was a former member of HMI-MPO, the hardline wing of the Indonesian Muslim Students Association. Served as general secretary for the Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI) after its founding in August 2000. Also headed the Makassar branch of KOMPAK, an alleged charitable organisation that made videos documenting atrocities against Muslims in Poso and Ambon that were used for JI recruitment purposes. KOMPAK-Makassar was also alleged to have channeled arms to Poso.
Agus Hidayat. One of the Bali suspects who worked with Imam Samudra. Like Yudi, a product of the state Islamic school system in Banten. Arrested on 25 November 2002 in connection with the robbery of a goldsmith’s shop in Serang, Banten.
Agus Kurniawan. Born 9 August 1978 arrested in connection with the Christmas Eve 2000 bombings in Bandung. Sentenced to nine years in prison in 2001.
Ahmad, Ustadz. Associate of Imam Samudra's whom a bomber recruited by Samudra was supposed to meet to arrange the bombing of a church outside Pekanbaru, Riau in December 2001.
Akim alias Fadli. Originally from Aceh, Akim was a small-time marijuana and arms dealer in Medan. Arrested in connection with the Medan Christmas Eve bombing, he was eventually convicted of marijuana possession. Currently detained of Tanjung Gusta Prison, Medan.
Akim Hakimuddin alias Suheb alias Asep. Akim, about 30, was one of the Bandung Christmas Eve bombers who died when the bomb went off prematurely. From Cikalang, Tasikmalaya, he had lived in Afghanistan between 1987 and 1991, and went from there to Malaysia, where he met Hambali. Akim also had two tours of duty in Ambon as a member of the Laskar Mujahidin forces between late 1999 and 2001. He probably returned to West Java sometime in the late 1990s, and joined a militant group called Barigade Taliban or Taliban Brigade, led by Kyai Zenzen Zaenal (Jainal) Muttaqin Atiq. Kyai Zenzen appears on a list of officers of the Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI) as a member of the Education and Culture Committee of the religious council (Ahlul Halli Wal Aqdi).
Ali Gufron alias Muklas/Muchlas alias Huda bin Abdul Haq. From Lamongan, East Java, elder brother of Amrozi, graduate of Pondok Ngruki in 1982, veteran of Afghanistan, resident of Malaysia where he taught at the Luqman al-Hakiem pesantren in Johor. Reportedly took over responsibility for JI operations in Singapore and Malaysia from Hambali when the international search for Hambali grew too intense.
Ali Imron. 35, younger brother of Amrozi, graduate of the Islamic high school (madrasah aliyah) in Karangasem, Lamongan, East Java, in 1986, joined his brothers in Malaysia in 1990, lived eight years there (with apparently a one-year break in 1995 studying in Pakistan), studied at the Luqmanul Hakiem pesantren in Johor. After his return to Indonesia, became a teacher at Pondok al-Islam in Lamongan. Reportedly drove minivan used in Bali attack from Lamongan to Bali.
Amrozi. 39. Arrested on 5 November 2002 for involvement in Bali plot. Born in 1963 in Tenggulun, Lamongan, dropped out of Islamic high school, left to work in Malaysia in 1985 for six months, returned to East Java, went back to Malaysia in 1992 and studied with Muchlas at Luqman al-Hakiem pesantren in Johor. Came back to Indonesia in 1997. In 2000 Abdul Aziz alias Imam Samudra contacted Amrozi, asked him to help obtain bomb-making materials for use in Ambon. Opened an auto repair shop in 2001, expert at repairing cars, cell phones, and other equipment.
Aris Mundandar. Right-hand man of Abu Bakar Ba'asyir at Pondok Ngruki. Born in Sambi, Boyolali, Java, graduated from Pondok Ngruki in 1989 (same year as Fathur Rahman al-Gozi). Fluent in Arabic and English. Active member of Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia and director of Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah for Central Java. One of the founders of KOMPAK, and producer of its video CDs about the conflict in Poso and Maluku that were used as JI recruiting tools. Said to be a leading figure in the Jakarta branch of an Abu Dhabi-based charity called Darul Birri. Also active in Mer-C (Medical Emergency Rescue Center) a Muslim humanitarian organization that sent assistance to Afghanistan after the American bombing campaign began in late 2001.
Arjuna. A Libyan-trained GAM defector from Aceh Pidie whose entire family Arkam was reportedly wiped out by Indonesian security forces during the Indonesian army’s counter-insurgency operations of the mid-1990s. He reportedly fled to Malaysia in 1998 and joined forces there with the the breakaway faction of GAM known as MPGAM, and began working with Indonesian officials in 1999.
Arkam. A native of Sumbawa who reportedly stayed with Amrozi in Lamongan, East Java.
Basuki alias Iqbal bin Ngatmo. Arrested in connection with an attempt to bomb a church outside Pekanbaru, Riau, in December 2001, on the instructions of Abdul Aziz alias Imam Samudra. He had been intending to go to Ambon for jihad when Samudra reportedly persuaded him that jihad was also possible elsewhere.
Batalyon Badar. Islamic group that took responsibility for the church bombings in Pekanbaru on Christmas Eve 2000. The claim was widely dismissed at the time but it may be re-examined in the wake of the Bali attack.
Camp Chaldun. Training camp in Afghanistan where many JI leaders reportedly trained.
Daud Beureueh. Leader of the Acehnese Darul Islam rebellion from 1953 to 1962, initially a completely separate movement from that in West Java which bore the same name. The movements joined forces, at least on paper, in the early 1960s, shortly before they were defeated by the Indonesian army, and Beureueh became imam of the movement. He was born in 1899 and died in 1987.
Dedi Mulyadi. One of the West Java bombers for the Christmas Eve 2000 operation, he was born in 1969 and went to Malaysia as a migrant worker in 1991. He was in Afghanistan from 1991-92, then returned to Malaysia where he worked until late 1994. He returned to Tasikmalaya and worked as a trader, then moved to Purwakarta and lived there until 1999 when he moved back to Tasikmalaya.
Dedi Setiono alias Abbas alias Usman. One of the convicted Atrium Mall bombers, Dedi was a Maluku veteran. He was from Bogor originally, had lived for many years in Malaysia, and made his living selling mineral water in Jakarta. Dedi had been with Hambali in Afghanistan in 1987 and met him again in South Jakarta in October 2000 to plan the Christmas Eve bombings. After his "success" as field commander for Jakarta of the latter operation, Abbas worked with Imam Samudra to coordinate the Atrium Mall bombing in early August 2001.
DDII, Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah Indonesia. Islamic Propagation Counci, sometimes seen as Islamic Proselytisation Council. Founded in 1967 by Mohammed Natsir. Close relations with the Rabitat al-Alam al-Islami, World Muslim League, based in Saudi Arabia.
Didin Rosman. See Iqbal.
Edi Sugiarto. One of the men convicted of the Christmas Eve 2000 bombings in Medan. Born on 22 August 1955 in Medan, he was of mixed Javanese-Acehnese ethnicity. During the army's counter-insurgency operations in Aceh throughout the 1990s, he operated an auto and electronics repair shop or bengkel in Uleeglee, Pidie, Aceh. The shop became well known as a gathering place for Kopassus forces. Sometime in the late 1990s, Edi began providing information to GAM and fixing their electronic equipment. He was accused of making the remote control mechanisms and timers for fourteen bombs, only one of which exploded. He was sentenced in 2001 to eleven years in prison.
Encep Nurjaman. See Hambali.
Enjang Bastaman alias Jabir. See Jabir.
Fadli alias Akim. See Akim.
Faiz bin Abubakar Bafana. Malaysian JI member currently detained in Singapore. Reportedly spent his childhood in Tanah Abang, Jakarta. His interrogation depositions have placed Abu Bakar Ba'asyir at some of the planning meetings for JI operations. Bafana reportedly worked closely with Hambali and helped him purchase explosives for the December 2000 bombings.
al-Faruq, Omar alias Moh. Assegaf. Alleged Kuwaiti (although the Kuwaiti government has denied that he is a citizen) linked to al-Qaeda, whose confession of activities in Indonesia provided the cover story for Time Magazine, 23 September 2002. See Abu Dzar
Fathur Rahman al-Ghozi. Born in Madium, East Java, he was arrested in Manila in January 2002 and convicted on charges of illegal possession of explosives. He graduated from Pondok Ngruki in 1989, studied in Pakistan, spent some time in Malaysia and has a Malaysian wife. His father, Zenuri, served time in prison for alleged links to Komando Jihad.
Fauzi Hasbi alias Abu Jihad. Son of Hasbi Geudong, father of Lamkaruna Putra. Self-styled leader of Republik Islam Aceh (RIA) and Front Mujahidin Born in 1948 in Samudera Geudong subdistrict, North Aceh. He spent much of his childhood (age 7 to 14) in the hills with the Darul Islam guerrilla forces. He joined GAM in 1976 with his father and brother, was arrested in 1979, was released under the guidance of Kopassus officer Syafrie Sjamsuddin to whom he became close. He started working against GAM. Through his father, he knew Abdullah Sungkar and became close to many of the JI members in Malaysia.
Fernandez, Joe. Malaysian state assemblyman from Lunas killed on 14 November 2000 in Bukit Mertajam, Malaysia, apparently by the JI-linked KKM.
Fikiruddin Muqti alias Abu Jibril alias Mohamed Ibal bin Abdurrahman. Born in Tirpas-Selong village, East Lombok. Became well-known preacher (muballigh) at the Sudirman mosque in Yogyakarta in the early 1980s. Fled to Malaysia in 1985, later joined by wife. Arrested by Malaysian authorities in June 2001 and charged with trying to establish a Southeast Asia-wide Islamic state. Made frequent trips to Indonesia, appears on a video CD recruiting volunteers to fight in the Maluku conflict. Became a member of the executive committee of Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI) in August 2000.
Fuad Amsyari. Secretary to Abu Bakar Ba'asyir in the religious council of the Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI).
GAM, Gerakan Aceh Merdeka. The Free Aceh Movement, started by Hasan di Tiro in 1976. While GAM is the acronym commonly used to describe both the political and military organization, GAM members themselves use GAM for the political movement and AGAM for the armed forces. Hasan di Tiro uses ASNLF, the Acheh Sumatra National Liberation Front as the term for the political movement. "Aceh" is considered pro-government orthography; "Acheh" is the spelling preferred by the pro-independence movement.
Haji Aceng Suheri. Scrap iron dealer, late 50's, provided house in Bandung where Christmas Eve 2000 bombs were constructed.
Haji Ismail Pranoto, see Hispran.
Haji Mansur. Father-in-law of wanted JI member Abdul Jabar, retired army officer, former village head of Sanio, subdistrict Woja, in Dompu, central Sumbawa.
Hambali alias Riduan Isamuddin. Born Encep Nurjaman in Kampung Pabuaran, subdistrict Karang Tengah, Cianjur, West Java on 4 April 1964. Second of 11 children of Ending Isomudin (deceased) and his wife, Eni Maryani. Attended madrasah called Manarul Huda, graduated from Al-Ianah Islamic High School, Cianjur, in 1984. Around late 1985, he left for Malaysia, saying he wanted to find work as a trader. Became a protégé of Abdullah Sungkar, spent several years in Afghanistan. Reportedly directed Christmas Eve 2000 bombings, was head of JI for Singapore and Malaysia, allegedly replaced in late 2002 by Ali Gufron alias Muchlas.
Haris Fadillah. See Abu Dzar.
Hasan di Tiro. Head of GAM and the Acheh Sumatra National Liberation Front. Based in Sweden.
Hasbi Geudong. Close associate of Acehnese Darul Islam leader Daud Beureueh, joined GAM in 1976 with two sons, Muchtar Hasbi and Fauzi Hasbi. Arrested in mid-1980s, moved to Singapore upon his release, then, allegedly after threats from Hasan di Tiro's men, to Malaysia where he became a neighbor of Abdullah Sungkar. Close to other DI leaders in West Java, he was considered by some to be the third imam of DI after Kartosuwirjo and Daud Beureueh. Died in Jakarta in March 1993.
Hendropriyono (Lt. Gen.). Head of National Intelligence Agency (Badan Intelijen Negara or BIN). In 1989, as head of Korem 043 in Kampung, the Black Garuda Command, he led an assault on a religious school in Way Jepara, Talangsari, Lampung that was linked to Pondok Ngruki through Abdullah Sungkar. In 1999 as Minister of Transmigration, he offered many of the Lampung families affected by the assault a form of material reconciliation known as islah, and as a result, some were resettled on shrimp farms in Sumbawa.
Hispran (Haji Ismail Pranoto). Originally from Brebes, former senior commander of the Darul Islam in East Java, used by Ali Moertopo to reactive Darul Islam as Komando Jihad in the mid-1970s. Reportedly inducted Abu Bakar Ba'asyir and Abdullah Sungkar into DI in 1976. Hispran was arrested in January 1977, tried in 1978, and sentenced to life in prison on subversion charges. He died in Cipinang Prison, Jakarta.
Holis alias Udin. One of the plotters in the West Java Christmas Eve 2000 bombings, still at large as of December 2002. From Desa Leuwianyar Tawang subdistrict, Tasikmalaya.
Husaini Hasan. Leader of breakaway faction of GAM known as MP-GAM, currently resident in Sweden. Bitterly opposed to Hasan di Tiro.
Huzrin Hood. Bupati of Kepulauan Riau (Riau Archipelago), alleged to have met with Omar al- Faruq and his wife in May 2002, reportedly associated with a hardline mosque in Tanjung Pinang, Riau.
Idris Mahmud, known as Teuku (Tk.) Idris. An Acehnese linked to MP-GAM who reportedly is part of the inner circle of JI in Malaysia. Reported to be a protégé of Arjuna (see Arjuna).
Imam Samudra. See Abdul Aziz.
Iqbal alias Didin. Arrested in connection with West Java Christmas Eve bombings of December 2000. Born Didin Rosman in 1958, a product of Darul Islam-affiliated pesantrens. Originally from Pasar Ucing, Garut, West Java, Iqbal had studied at Pesantren Rancadadap in Curug, Garut, then moved to another pesantren, Awi Hideung. In the late 1970s, he became a trader of palm sugar and other goods that he sold in the Kiaracondong market in Bandung. Iqbal reportedly kept up his religious studies with various kyai, including Kyai Saeful Malik, also known as Acengan Cilik, a former Darul Islam leader. Iqbal was a key local contact for Jabir and Hambali as the Christmas Eve 2000 bombings were being planned. Sentenced in 2001 to a twentyyear prison term.
Iqbal alias Armasan alias Lacong. The alleged suicide bomber in Bali was born in Sukamana, Malimping, Banten in 1980. Member of the cell that included Imam Samudra and Yudi.
Irfan Awwas Suryahardy. Born in Tirpas-Selong village, East Lombok, 4 April 1960. Attended Gontor pesantren. Edited ar-Risalah newsletter in early 1980s, founded activist organisation called Badan Komunikasi Pemuda Mesjid (BKPM). Arrested on subversion charges, sentenced on 8 February 1984 to 13 years in prison, served nine. Head of executive committee of Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI). Brother of Fikiruddin.
Iswandi alias Herianto, name used by man sought in Medan bombings of Christmas Eve 2000. See Polem.
Jabir. Alias of Enjang Bastaman, JI figure and friend of Hambali killed in Bandung in Christmas Eve 2000 bombing operation. About 40 years old, he was from Banjarsari, Ciamis, graduated from Pondok Ngruki around 1990 and continued education at Perguruan Tinggi Dakwah Islam (PTDI) in Tanjung Priok. Lived in Malaysia and had trained in Afghanistan, also visited Thailand. In 1996 he returned to Ciamis to get married, took his wife back to Malaysia that same year. He returned to Indonesia when his first child was about to be born in 1998 and stayed in the Bandung area thereafter. In 2000 he reportedly moved to Tasikmalaya but maintained regular contact with JI people in Malaysia.
Jemaah Islamiyah. Organisation set up by Abdullah Sungkar in Malaysia in 1994 or 1995, not to be confused with the generic term, jemaah islamiyah which just means "Islamic community." It was formally entered on the United Nations list of terrorist organisations on 23 October 2002.
Kahar Muzakkar. Leader of the Darul Islam rebellion in South Sulawesi from 1950 to 1965. Born La Domeng in Luwu, South Sulawesi in 1921, he rebelled after the Indonesian army refused to incorporate his forces as a separate brigade. He died in 1965 after being shot in a raid carried out by Mohamad Jusuf, later Indonesian Defense Minister. One of his sons, Aziz Kahar Muzakkar, head of KPSI and Pesantren Hidayatullah in Malaysia is reportedly close to some JI members.
Kartosuwirjo, Sekarmadji Maridjan. Leader of the West Java Darul Islam rebellion 1948-62. Born in Cepu, West Java, in 1905, died upon capture in 1962. Inspirational figure for many in Indonesia who advocate an Islamic state, including JI members.
Khilafatul Muslimin. Organization set up by Abdul Qadir Baraja in Teluk Betung, Lampung, and Taliwong, Sumbawa.
KMM, Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia (Malalysian authorities often use "Kumpulan Militant Malaysia"). Group linked to JI whose members were associated not only with a series of bank robberies and explosions but also with a series of meetings in Malaysia in which one of the 11 September hijackers took part.
Komando Jihad. Name given by Soeharto government to a revived Darul Islam movement of the mid-1970s that was manipulated by Ali Moertopo, a senior Indonesian army officer in charge of covert operations, to discredit the Muslim opposition to Soeharto prior to the 1977 elections.
KPPSI, Komite Persiapan Pengerakan Syariat Islam. The Preparatory Committee for Upholding Islamic Law was set up in Makassar, South Sulawesi in May 2000. Founders reportedly saw it as a way of continuing the Darul Islam struggle through constitutional means. The head was Abdul Aziz Qahhar Muzakkar; Agus Dwikarna was a prominent member. The organisation later dropped the "Preparatory" and became simply KPSI.
Kulur. Name of an ethnic group in Saparua, Maluku, whose members served in the Indonesian army and reported assisted Laskar Mujahidin forces.
Laksar Mujahidin. The umbrella group of armed forces linked to JI fighting in Maluku and Poso. Total number never exceeded 500 in Maluku. First commander was Abu Dzar, Omar al-Faruq's fatherin- law who was killed in October 2000. Not to be confused with LaskarJihad, with which there was no cooperation.
Laskar Jundullah. Name given to security wing of KPPSI led by Agus Dwikarna that sent fighters to Poso and Maluku. The term "Laskar Jundullah" or Army of Allah was also used by a number of ad hoc units that fought in Maluku and Poso prior to Laskar Jundullah's formal creation in September 2000.
Ligadinsyah alias Lingga. GAM commander for Central Aceh (Takengon), Libyan-trained. Tried and convicted in connection with the Medan Christmas Eve bombings of December 2000 but involvement appears to have consisted of overhearing a conversation. Serving sentence in Tanjung Gusta Prison, Medan.
MMI, Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia. Organisation set up in August 2000 by Abu Bakar Ba'asyir and Irfan Awwas Suryahardy to constitute a political front for all groups in Indonesia working to establish Islamic law. MMI includes many JI members, but also many others with perfectly legitimate occupations.
Malik Mahmud. Prime Minister of GAM.
Mira Agustina. Wife of Omar al-Faruq, daughter of Haris Fadillah alias Abu Dzar.
Mohamed Syafe’i. Brother of Irfan Awwas Suryahardy, reportedly head of pesantren al-Banna in east Lombok. Pesantren said to have been disbanded in late 2002.
Mohammed Fawazi. Man from east Lombok being sought in connection with Bali bombings.
Muchlas. See Ali Gufron.
Muchtar Yahya Hasbi. Son of Hasbi Geudong, deputy to Hasan di Tiro in GAM after its founding in 1976 and head of the drafting committee of Republik Islam Aceh (RIA). Shot and killed in Indonesian army assault on GAM in 1980.
Mursalin Dahlan. Helped found MMI; active in Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah Indonesia (Islamic Propagation Council). Former activist student at Bandung Institute of Technology; imprisoned for six months prior to special session of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) 1978; shared a cell with Darul Islam notable Panji Gumilang alias Abu Toto; heads West Java branch of a Muslim political party, Partai Umat Islam (PUI).
Ngruki. Town outside Solo, Central Java, that gave its name to the religious boarding school founded by Abdullah Sungkar and Abu Bakar Ba'asyir. The school, whose official name is Pesantren al- Mukmin, is better known as Pondok Ngruki. Many JI members have attended or taught there or have links to one of the two founders.
NII, Negara Islam Indonesia. Islamic State of Indonesia, name given to the state that the Darul Islam movement was trying to establish.
Pesantren Luqman al-Hakiem. A religious boarding school in Johor, Malaysia, founded by Abdullah Sungkar and which many JI members appear to have attended.
Polem. A nickname meaning "elder brother" in Acehnese, Polem had an identity card in the name of Iswandi. Said to be from Pasar Teupin Punti, Samtalirah Aron subdistrict, in Lhokseumawe, North Aceh. Had trucking and shrimp farm business, did business with GAM. Said to be a key figure in the Medan Christmas Eve bombings of December 2000.
RM, Rabitatul Mujahidin. International Mujahidin Association established by Abu Bakar Ba'asyir in Kuala Lumpur in late 1999. Representatives of Muslim separatist organisations from Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Burma attended, together with several key JI members. The association itself is not particularly active.
Ramli. Acehnese foodstall owner in Medan who appeared as witness in the Medan Christmas Eve bombings trials.
Rauf. See Abdul Rauf.
Riduan Isamuddin. See Hambali.
Rony Milyar. Convicted in Bandung Christmas Eve 2000 bombings. See Agus Kurniawan.
Saleh As’ad. Kyai from Banten, former Darul Islam figure, said to have helped radicalise Imam Samudra.
Shodiq Musawa. Convicted in 1985 Borobodur bombing, relative of Abdul Qadir Baraja, long-time resident of Malang, East Java. Member of MMI.
Syafrie Sjamsuddin. Major General, spokesman for the Indonesian armed forces headquarters, arrested Fauzi Hasbi alias Abu Jihad, has maintained close contact with him ever since.
Syawal, Yassin. Also known as Salim Yasin, Abu Seta, Mahmud, Muhamad Mubarok, and Muhammad Syawal. Son-in-law of Abdullah Sungkar (married a stepdaughter). Trained at Camp Chaldun in Afghanistan with Hambali, leading JI figure in South Sulawesi. Is alleged to have carried out military training at the Hidyatullah pesantren in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, together with Aris Munandar and Omar al-Faruq, for recruits going to fight in Poso and Maluku. Reportedly has strong ties to the southern Philippines as well.
Tamsil Linrung. Former treasurer of the National Mandate Party (PAN), arrested with Agus Dwikarna in the Philippines in March 2002, freed shortly thereafter. Helped found Laskar Jundullah, also took part in the founding meeting of Abu Bakar Ba’asyir’s International Mujahidin Association (Rabitatul Mujahidin) in late 1999.
Taufik Abdul Halim alias Dani, Malaysian convicted in the JI-linked bomb explosion at the Atrium Mall in Jakarta on 1 August 2001. Younger brother of alleged KMM head, Zulkifli bin Abdul Hir.
Umar. Associate of Hambali who had contact with some of the key figures involved in the West Java Christmas Eve bombings. Resident of Malaysia. May be one of the Umars being sought in connection with the Bali bombings.
Usman Mahmud alias Musa. Head of a pesantren/ clinic for addicts, gamblers and thugs in West Java. Gave work to Jabir in 1999.
Wawan. Afghanistan veteran involved in making the bomb that went off prematurely in Bandung, 24 December 2000.
Way Jepara. Name of Lampung village where 1989 Indonesian army assault on religious school took place after subdistrict military commander was killed.
Yazid Sufaat. Senior JI member detained in Malaysia, said to be responsible for the Christmas Eve 2000 bombings in Medan.
Yoyo. One of the footsoldiers in the Ciamis Christmas Eve 2000 bombings.
Yudi alias Andri. One of the Bali suspects, part of Imam Samudra's cell in Banten. Born in the village of Sukamanah, Malimping, Banten in 1980. After going to a state elementary school, Yudi went to Pondok Ngruki from 1992-1995. Allegedly helped Abdul Rauf prepare the Bali bombs.
Ayman al-Zawaheri. An Egyptian doctor accused of complicity in the assassination of Anwar Sadat, now believed to be Osama bin Laden's deputy in al- Qaeda. He reportedly visited Aceh in 2000, accompanied by Omar al-Faruq.
Zulfahri, Don. Born in Idi Rayeuk, East Aceh in 1960, left Aceh in 1980 and after some years in the United States, went to Malaysia where he became a successful businessman. He also became a leader of MP-GAM, the group opposed to Hasan di Tiro, and was shot dead in Malaysia on 1 June 2000, reportedly by di Tiro's supporters.
Zulkifli bin Abdul Hir. Brother of Taufik, above, alleged head of Kumpulun Mujahidin Malaysia (KMM).
Zulkifli Marzuki. Malaysian alleged to be the "secretary" of JI.