Jakarta Blast: A Reminder

The car bomb explosion in Jakarta on August 5, 2003, which killed 13 persons, one of them a Dutch bankingexecutive, and injured over a hundred others, including some foreigners, is a reminder that the motivation ofthe jehadi terrorists spearheaded by organisations such as the Jemmah Islamiyah (JI) remains as strong as ever,despite the determined action taken by the governments of the region against them and the large number ofarrests of their hard core members.

South-East Asia has been experiencing what India has experienced for over a decade now -- the carnage ofthe hydra-headed monster of pan-Islamic jehadi terrorism. The more the heads one cuts off, the more new onescrop up. Captures and body-counts are unreliable indicators of the progress made in the action against them. It is difficult to predict when the monster would have been sufficiently hurt to reach a state of collapse. All one can say for now is that the collapse is not for tomorrow.

And when the collapse comes, will it be of jehadi terrorism or of the will of the States whose people andsecurity forces are being bled by it? The answer to this depends on how relentless  is thecounter-terrorism operations of the States of the region and how effective is the action taken by theinternational community against Pakistan, which is the principal breeding ground of jehadi terrorism, andSaudi Arabia, a principal source of their funds.

The Jakarta blast came two days before the expected verdict relating to one of the principal accused in thecase of the Bali explosion of last year and two days after the telecast by the Al Arabia TV station in theGulf of a tape purported to be of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No.2 to Osama bin Laden in Al Qaeda, in which he hadwarned as follows with reference to the suspected Al Qaeda prisoners in the custody of the US at GuantanamoBay in Cuba: "All those, who handed over the prisoners to America or to any of its agents, will also pay. Let it be clear to those who conspire with America, that America cannot defend itself, let alone defendothers."

Was the timing intended? It would be difficult to say. Was the blast meant to intimidate the judges tryingthe cases arising from the Bali explosion not to pronounce a guilty verdict.  Though acts of terrorismmeant to intimidate the judiciary are not uncommon in India, the Jakarta blast, which was directed at theAmerican-owned Marriot Hotel, does not appear to have been meant to warn the Indonesian judiciary.  Ifthey had wanted to convey a warning to the judiciary, they would have chosen as their target a buildingassociated with the judiciary or at least the government.

Was it in pursuance of Al-Zawahiri's warning to the USA and its collaborators? Possibly, but one cannot becertain.  Though the target hit was an American-owned hotel, the manner in which it has been carried outand the relatively very few foreign casualties would indicate that it was more a shot-in-the-dark operationthan a well-planned and well-executed one. The prime purpose of the blast seems to have been to proclaim tothe world and the people of the region that the jehadi terrorists are alive and kicking despite the successesclaimed by the governments of the region in their counter-terrorism operations.

One cannot also rule out an economic purpose to keep foreign tourists and businessmen away from the region.Since November last year, messages purporting to be from bin Laden, which have been circulating in Asia, havebeen underlining the economic component of the jehad too.

Since the beginning of last year, the countries of the region have stepped up their counter-terrorismoperations at the national level and strengthened the co-operation at the regional level.  The recentlyset-up Counter-terrorism Centre in Malaysia is expected to contribute to even better co-ordination ofintelligence sharing, assessment and follow-up action.  Many arrests have been made in Singapore,Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia and Thailand and successful investigations have led to quickprosecutions as in the case of the accused in the Bali explosion. Many jehadi terrorist cells have beendismantled.

There have been set-backs too as could be seen from the repeated inability of the authorities of thePhilippines and Indonesia to prevent major acts of terrorism and to identify and neutralise the hide-outs ofthe octopus of jehadi terrorism in their territory.

In the 1960s and the 1970s, the governments of the region had effectively co-operated against communist andcommunist-inspired insurgencies.  Compared to the fight against jehadi terrorism, that against communistinsurgency was a comparatively easier task because communism was an alien ideology sought to be imported fromoutside and did not gel with the political thinking and religious beliefs of the large majority of the peopleof the region. Feelings of hostility to the West and particularly the USA were not as widespread in thepopulace as they are today and hence did not come in the way of effective counter-insurgency operations at thenational and regional levels.

Jehadi terrorism is a different kettle of fish -- an outgrowth of the soil of the region and more ruthless.Even though the different components of its pan-Islamic ideology were born in the madrasas of Pakistan andspread from there across the Muslim Ummah, they find ready resonance in the mindset and religious beliefs ofgrowing numbers of the people of the region.  The vastly grown hostility to the USA since the Gulf war of1991 has provided this octopus with a strength which it might not have otherwise had.

The countries of the region -- whether Islamic or non-Islamic -- woke up to the common danger posed by the pan-Islamic jehadi terrorism to peace and security in the region only after 9/11, but pan-Islamic jehaditerrorists, many from this region and some from outside, trained in Pakistan and battle-hardened inAfghanistan in the jehad against the Soviet troops, had been burrowing into this region for more than a decadeand setting up secret cells and networks, training camps and other infrastructure.

Initially, the leadership role in creating rear bases for the successful spread of jehadi terrorism in theregion was taken by the Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) of southern Philippines, withthe help of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) of Pakistan, which became a founding member of Osama bin Laden'sInternational Islamic Front (IIF) in 1998.  The HUM devised the strategy of helping its Fillipinocollaborators set up a training infrastructure in those areas of southern Philippines which were no-go for theFillipino security forces, in order to avoid bringing the  jehadi recruits of the Philippines to Pakistanfor training.

The HUM-aided training infrastructure in southern Philippines, which, according to reliable Pakistanisources, still exists, became and continues to be the epicentre of pan-Islamic jehadi terrorism in the region. It trained not only Fillipino jehadis, but also recruits from other countries of the region, to whateverorganisation they belonged provided they subscribed to the pan-Islamic jehadi ideology. The Philippinesprovided and continues to provide congenial conditions for a rear base of the jehadi terrorists.

Indonesians did not play as active a role in the jehad against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan as theFillipino jehadis, but the virus of jehadi terrorism started spreading to the country from the middle 1990s. It initially spread from the Philippines, but during the last two or three years, the winds of jehad have beenblowing as much from Pakistan as from the Philippines.  Reports from Pakistani sources say that theLashkar-e-Toiba (LET), another  member of the IIF, which is now acting as the standard-bearer and suicidebrigade of the disorganised Al Qaeda,has been successfully burrowing into Indonesia and set up an ideological and operational rear base with the co-operation of organisations such as the Lashkar-e-Jehad and the JI.

Thus, the Philippines and Indonesia have become the two sides of a still incomplete jehadi triangle. The Al Qaeda, the HUM and the LET eye Malaysia as a possible third rear base of pan-Islamic jehadi terrorism. In their assessment, conditions there are congenial, with the presence in Malaysia of a large number ofwell-motivated cadres who had studied in the madrasas of Pakistan. If they succeed, the region will beconfronted with a terrorism triangle similar to the Afghanistan-Pakistan-Saudi Arabia triangle, from whichmost of the jehadi terrorists operating against India and the USA have presently come.

If the campaign against terrorism in the South-East Asian region has to be effective, it has to, firstly,thwart the efforts of the jehadis to set up a rear base in Malaysia and, secondly, act resolutely against theterrorist infrastructure already set up in Indonesia and the southern Philippines.

The counter-terrorism campaign, as presently waged by the countries of the region, seems to be largelypersonality-focussed -- that is identifying the leaders of its brains-trust and making them in-operative. Fromthe interrogation of a number of hard-core members captured either during preventive raids or duringinvestigations into terrorist incidents, considerable intelligence has been collected about personalities,fund flows, operational methods etc.  But, one is still not in a position to quantify with some degree ofaccuracy the threat which still remains to be met in terms of infrastructure, recruitment flows, motivation,capabilities and future intentions.

19. While a personality-oriented campaign is important, equally, if not more, important is aninfrastructure-focussed one.  Unless the infrastructure across the region is identified and eliminated,the more the heads one cuts, the more they will grow up. The time has come for the countries of the region toset up a joint task force to focus on the identification and elimination of the terrorist infrastructureacross the region.  This subject also needs the attention of the non-governmental think tanks of theregion and of other non-governmental expert groups such as the working group on terrorism of the Council onSecurity Co-operation Asia-Pacific (CSCAP), which has already done valuable work in providing intellectualinputs to the fight against terrorism. 

(B. Ramanis Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute forTopical Studies, Chennai, and Convenor, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Chennai chapter.)