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June 13, 2007
Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) is a militant Islamist group active in several Southeast Asian countries that's seeking to establish a pan-Islamic state across much of the region. Anti-terror authorities struck a blow against Jemaah Islamiyah ("Islamic Organization" in Arabic) when they arrested its operational chief, Nurjaman Riduan Ismuddin, also known as Hambali, in Thailand August 2003. More recently, authorities in Jakarta arrested JI's leader, Abu Dujana, and seven other group members in June 2007. JI is alleged to have attacked or plotted against U.S. and Western targets in Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines. The most recent attack believed to have been carried out by JI operatives came on October 1, 2005, when a series of suicide bombings killed at least nineteen people and wounded more than 100 in Bali, a beachfront city and international tourist destination.
Authorities in the region have arrested more than 200 members of the group for allegedly planning an October 12, 2002, bombing that killed 202 people at a Bali nightclub. Three of the four main suspects behind the bombing have been sentenced to death in Indonesia. JI is also suspected in the August 5, 2003, car bombing of the J.W. Marriott hotel in Jakarta that killed twelve, and the September 9, 2004, attack, which apparently targeted the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. Before the Bali bombing, Indonesian authorities had not aggressively investigated the group, though Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines had cracked down on it. After the Bali attack, the United States—which suspects the group of having ties to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network—designated Jemaah Islamiyah a foreign terrorist organization.
Yes. State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher said in January 2003 that “information indicates that Hambali was involved in a 1995 plot to bomb eleven U.S. commercial airliners in Asia and directed the late-2001 foiled plot to attack U.S. and Western interests in Singapore,” referring to Jemaah Islamiyah’s plans to attack the U.S., British, and Israeli embassies in December 2001. In the most recent Bali attacks, two Americans were reportedly wounded.
Because of reluctance to anger Indonesian public sentiment. While Singapore and Malaysia would have supported adding the group to Washington’s list earlier, the United States had been trying to secure Indonesia’s cooperation on the war on terror without alienating its Muslim political parties or undermining its then-moderate president, Megawati Sukarnoputri. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a former general who was elected Indonesia’s president in October 2004, has done more to clamp down on JI and other Islamic extremist groups than his predecessor, experts say. The first Bali bombing also spurred Indonesia to acknowledge the extent of its terrorism problem, and the U.S. designation followed. Listing Jemaah Islamiyah as a foreign terrorist organization restricts the group’s finances and its members’ travel.
Probably, but experts disagree on the extent of them. Some U.S. officials and terrorism experts refer to JI as al-Qaeda’s Southeast Asian wing and say the group is capable of opening a second front against U.S. interests in the region. Other experts argue the two terrorist groups are not that closely linked and add that Jemaah Islamiyah’s regional goals do not fully match al-Qaeda’s global aspirations. Abu Bakar Bashir, JI’s alleged spiritual leader, denies the group has ties to al-Qaeda, but has expressed support for Osama bin Laden. A Qaeda operative arrested in Indonesia reportedly told U.S. investigators that Bashir was directly involved in Qaeda plots.
At the very least, a few individuals have been linked to both groups. Hambali is the Jemaah Islamiyah leader thought to be most closely linked to al-Qaeda. He allegedly has been involved in several terrorist attacks and plots in the region. Some experts say he may have delegated some of his operational responsibilities while he was being pursued by Indonesian and other intelligence services. Other individuals with suspected ties to both al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah have been detained in the region, and some have been turned over to U.S. investigators.
It’s unclear. Experts say the group has cells operating throughout Southeast Asia, including in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and possibly the Philippines, Cambodia, and Thailand. Weak central authority, lax or corrupt law enforcement, and open maritime borders in some of these countries ease JI’s ability to operate throughout the region. It is unclear how crackdowns in several countries since the Bali bombings have affected the group. Officials estimate the size of JI may vary from several hundred to a few thousand members.
The name Jemaah Islamiyah dates to the late 1970s, but experts aren’t certain if the name referred to a formal organization or an informal gathering of like-minded Muslim radicals—or a government label for Islamist malcontents. The group has its roots in Darul Islam, a violent radical movement that advocated the establishment of Islamic law in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country and also home to Christians, Hindus, and adherents of other faiths. Darul Islam sprang up as the country emerged from Dutch colonial rule in the late 1940s, and its followers continued to resist the postcolonial Indonesian republic, which it saw as too secular. Some experts say JI was formed by a small handful of Indonesian extremists exiled in Malaysia in the late 1980s. In its early years, JI renounced violence, but the group shifted tactics in the late 1990s because of suspected links with al-Qaeda figures in Afghanistan.
Abu Bakar Bashir, an Indonesian of Yemeni descent, is thought to be the group’s spiritual leader—and, some speculate, an operational leader as well. Bashir joined Darul Islam in the 1970s and was imprisoned in Indonesia for Islamist activism. In 1985, after a court ordered him back to prison, Bashir fled to Malaysia. There, he recruited volunteers to fight in the anti-Soviet Muslim brigades in Afghanistan and sought funding from Saudi Arabia while maintaining connections with former colleagues in Indonesia.
After the Indonesian dictator Suharto stepped down in 1998, Bashir returned home to run a pesantren—a Muslim seminary—in Solo, on the Muslim-majority island of Java. He also took up leadership of the Indonesian Mujahedeen Council, an Islamist umbrella group. Bashir has denied involvement in terrorism. Following the October 2002 Bali bombing, Indonesian officials demanded Bashir submit to questioning about that and earlier attacks. In 2003, he was convicted of treason, but the charge was soon after overturned by the Jakarta High Court and, in April 2004, Bashir was released from prison. Citing new evidence, Indonesia authorities re-arrested Bashir the same day. On March 5, 2005, he was acquitted of charges that he participated in the 2003 attacks in Jakarta but was found guilty of conspiracy for the 2002 Bali bombings and sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison, which the U.S. and Australian governments criticized as too lenient.
Among Southeast Asia’s most-wanted terrorists are Azhari Husin and Mohammed Noordin Top, both Malaysian-born members of Jemaah Islamiyah. Husin, a Britain-educated engineer and explosives expert, and Top, a former accountant, are allegedly behind the attacks of the Marriott and Australian Embassy in Jakarta.
Until his arrest in 2003, Hambali played the most important leadership role in Jemaah Islamiyah, according to U.S. and Asian intelligence officials. He was the group’s operational chief, they say, and was closely involved in several terrorist plots. U.S. officials announced August 14, 2003, that he was arrested by Thai authorities in Ayutthaya, about sixty miles north of Bangkok, and handed over to the Central Intelligence Agency. The U.S. State Department says Hambali was the head of Jemaah Islamiyah’s regional shura, its policymaking body, and suspected of being al-Qaeda’s operations director for East Asia. The State Department in January 2003 froze Hambali’s assets and the assets of another suspected terrorist, Mohamad Iqbal Abdurraham, also known as Abu Jibril. The department said that, until his arrest in Malaysia in June 2001, Abu Jibril was “Jemaah Islamiyah’s primary recruiter and second-in-command.”
The group—or individuals affiliated with it—is thought to be tied to several terrorist plots. Among them:
It varies. Singapore and Malaysia, two countries with strong central governments, have outlawed the group and arrested suspected members. Singapore, for example, foiled a JI plot to attack U.S., British, and Israeli embassies in Singapore. The Philippines, which has struggled to contain Abu Sayyaf, another local Islamist militant group with suspected Qaeda ties, has also pursued Jemaah Islamiyah. These three countries have shared intelligence with the United States and sometimes turned over suspects. By comparison, Indonesia had done little until the Bali bombing.
Following the September 11, 2001, attacks, the government spent months resisting pressure from its neighbors and the United States to detain alleged JI leaders. Many Indonesian authorities questioned whether the group even existed. Indonesia also resisted U.S. and Asian government requests to arrest Hambali, then JI’s suspected operations leader, and he eventually went underground.
Some Indonesian officials said that targeting the extremist group could generate public sympathy for it and help build a following for Bashir and JI in the otherwise largely moderate Muslim country. Indonesia-watchers said the government was also worried about appearing to cave in to U.S. demands and so antagonize Islamic political parties. Following the Bali bombing, however, Indonesia changed its tune, passing new antiterrorism legislation and ordering Bashir’s arrest.
It’s unclear. Some experts say the recent attacks in Bali, which consisted of three bombers strapped with ten kilograms each of tightly packed explosives and steel ball bearings, were considerably smaller in scale and less sophisticated than previous attacks by JI. That might suggest the group is lacking outside funding, says Zachary Abuza, assistant professor of political science and international relations at Simmons College. “Maybe they simply just cannot afford to purchase trucks or minivans to use in large operations,” he said in an October 2 interview with ABC’s The World Today. Other experts say security crackdowns and arrests of key JI leaders have created a schism within the group between a radical branch that advocates violent jihad and a more mainstream one that favors more peaceful means to achieving its aims.
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