From the Herald Sun (Dec 25): Australian authorities worried over Indonesia’s growing religious and racial intolerance
IN Gasibu Square in Indonesia’s third largest city of Bandung east of Jakarta, 25,000 students recently rallied to mark Prophet Muhammad’s birthday.
The event went without incident but the serene scene of devotion in chant and song is somewhat in contrast to what is bubbling below the surface not just in Bandung or Indonesia but more broadly the region.
And the ramifications of these have Australian police worried.
“If Bandung is safe, West Java and Indonesia will be safe as well,” National Police chief General Tito Karnavian declared somewhat prophetically at the end of the peaceful gathering.
But his apparent relief belies the growing religious and racial intolerance in Bandung and across Indonesia that in recent days has seen the storming of Christian Christmas celebrations by hard line Sunni Muslims. It also comes with intelligence uncovering Islamic madrasa schools preaching hate of the West and the forming of an unholy alliance of disparate jihadist groups — including members of the once feared and believed disbanded Jemaah Islamiyah — now pledging allegiance to Islamic State which is set to declare its desire for a four-nation caliphate in the region.
Officers of the Indonesian national police elite unit ‘Mobile Brigade’ take their positions during a drill ahead of Christmas celebration in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia on December 21. Picture: AP / Binsar Bakkara
To this end, a terror training camp has already been established in a remote corner of the Philippines for battle-weary South East Asians of all countries fleeing the Middle East but wanting to continue the cause under the Black Standard of ISIS at home.
It is this confluence of evil that has law enforcers expressing grave security fears for Australians at home and living or travelling abroad and has led to unprecedented liaison between regional police forces including officers and intelligence agents deployed from Australia and fanning out across the region.
It is also to this backdrop Indonesian police announced last week the mobilisation of 155,000 officers to the nation’s streets from December 23 to January 4 not to mention a small army of intelligence-backed military to hunt terrorist plotters looking to make a spectacular statement.
Indeed, just a day before that show of force, counter-terror squad police in Jakarta shot dead three suspected militants, arrested a fourth and uncovered a bomb.
Earlier raids netted three suspected terrorists in Central Java and a plot to bomb somewhere outside Java, potentially Bali.
“You could say there is a fair bit going on at the moment,” an Australian Federal Police agent on the frontline of counter-terrorism said.
Liaison between a loose coalition of law enforcers in Australia, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and partner states like Thailand has been set-up to combat what many are saying is a perfect storm of events that could see elements of the melee of Syria and Iraq transposed to the southern hemisphere.
On a scale of 1-10 on the threat to regional security, Indonesian terror expert Al Chaidar was clear this week. It is a “9”.
“Yes it is a 9, we are almost like Syria,” he told News Corp Australia yesterday.
“We are at an intolerance emergency, it’s horrible.
“Not only threat related with security but also threat related with diversity. Our pluralism multiculturalism is currently being threatened. Our tolerance life is also being threatened by the appearance of intolerance movements.”
He said while the West remained the target, internally and pushed from outside by groups like ISIS was faith-based intolerance. He said unlike before, those looking to support jihad were media and tech savvy middle class figures and not just the disaffected from lower socio economics.
He said there were seven main terrorist group in Indonesia, three affiliated with al-Qaeda and four with ISIS looking to make a spectacular attack and spark internal conflict like in Syria to pave the wave for a caliphate declaration. But he said the region was under threat from other ideologies looking to unite.
Earlier this year, four Islamic militant groups in the Philippines including the brutal Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) swore allegiance to ISIS with hunted jihadist Isnilon Hapilon (aka Abu Abdullah al-Filipini) anointed as ISIS “emir of Southeast Asia”.
The ISIS regional title was reportedly to have gone to Indonesian firebrand cleric and Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) leader Aman Abdurrahman but he was arrested and now continues to lead from the inside only.
But his followers instead now have fallen into line with the Filipino plot with movement between Indonesia, Malaysia, Borneo, Singapore fluid. ISIS elements have also risen up in Bangladesh and Brunei is said to be a target for ISIS recruitment and inclusion into its desired caliphate.
Malaysian and Indonesians are actively training in Mindanao in the Philippines; there have been some 900 nationals from these countries and Singapore who have travelled to Syria to join ISIS and for an attack and at least 100 have returned with more suspected hiding in remote camps in Philippines.
Mark Briskey, former Australian Federal Police agent who was based in Jakarta at the time of the Bali bombings and was one of the tragedies’ leading investigators, said the swearing of the regional allegiance behind ISIS chief al-Baghdadi was a major worry.
Dr Briskey said it wasn’t particularly new to see these militant groups finding common ground but he said the face of the terrorist was evolving, to include middle class radicals many of whom are being radicalised in their homes from internet or via the community promotion of intolerance.
“The risk is high, and as we’ve seen it only need someone to be off-radar, off the association diagram sitting in the ASIO and AFP offices, if there is a cleanskin person who has radicalised themselves independently they are only limited by their imagination,” he said.
“We’ve seen this in Canada earlier in the year and regionally we saw the Indonesians claim the interdiction of a plot earlier in the month … despite best efforts of the Indonesian National Police, there is still a strong likelihood at some point someone is going to undertake these acts.”
Another new regional trend in terror has been the recruitment of women as potential suicide bombers, recruiters and or organisers.
Three women were arrested earlier this month for the attempted plot to bomb Indonesia’s Presidential State Palace with a 3kg chemical bomb, the operation financed directly from figures in Syria.
Indonesian anti-riot police take part in a roll call in Jakarta on December 22, 2016, as part of efforts to secure Christmas and New Year celebrations. Picture: AFP / Bay Ismoyo
But there are other plots and according to Australian law enforcement that has led to unprecedented liaisons between regional counter terrorism agencies notably between Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.
South East Asian law enforcers are even looking to adopt Australian techniques to identify potential terrorists.
A human risk assessment tool being deployed in South East Asia by police looks at a 27-point model to risk assess those likely to take up the jihadi cause.
The “27 indicator” model created by academics in Melbourne stemmed in part from analysis of transcripts of the multi-agency ASIO, AFP and NSW and Victorian police forces’ Operation Pendennis that uncovered two terrorist cells in Sydney and Melbourne that saw 17 people arrested and in 2009 led to the 15 year jailing of plot leader Abdul Nacer Benbrika, as well as studies of overseas experience of extremists and right wing and left wing activists.
One of the creators of the model Professor Greg Barton said the model looked at social circles, observations from family and teachers, known aggression and expression of ideas.
“The 27 is not a magic number … it’s a matrix to work out where to pay attention on a large watchlist, to sort through what your immediate priorities are,” he said.
Macquarie University terror expert Associate lecturer Lise Waldeck who formally worked for the UK’s Ministry of Defence and Home Office, said the move away from criminal or ethnic profiling to more fluid risk assessment indicators was a positive step.
Ms Waldeck said ISIS had recently been telling its militants overseas to “camouflage” themselves including wearing Western clothes and shaving off beards to strike.
She said looking at vulnerabilities like economic, personality traits, employment and education, psychological health, social networks, family ties was more relevant than crime profiles of just age, gender, race, age, previous criminal history and gang or crime family associations.
“If you transposed that to terrorism it’s not particularly useful,” she said. “In the past yes a majority of individuals engaging in violent extremism were males but actually now there’s a growing number of women … age range too, 18 to 25 before but now we see a lot more younger boys and girls as well as people all the way up into their late 30s and into their 40s.”
She said risk assessment matrixes had been used overseas notably by authorities in the UK, Germany and Denmark with some success and allowed for a quicker response and preventive measures to deradicalise suspects.
News Corp Australia has learned many schools in Indonesia are skirting the radical tag by preaching not hate but history, highlighting in rhetoric how regional Muslim power was taken by the West in centuries gone by.
These teaching include colonialisation by Christians backed by armed forces who “stole” Muslim power notably the Spanish and Americans in the Philippines and the Dutch all to push the Christian word.
It gives some authenticity to preaching about the need to reclaim lost original Islamic lands.
Of the unprecedented liaison with overseas counter terrorism fight, the AFP would not comment yesterday.
“The AFP works closely with its international partners to address the shared threat of terrorism, we do not, however, comment on matters of intelligence,” an AFP spokeswoman said.
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