{"id":39307,"date":"2018-05-15T11:00:16","date_gmt":"2018-05-15T01:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=39307"},"modified":"2018-05-15T11:19:50","modified_gmt":"2018-05-15T01:19:50","slug":"deadly-attacks-a-sign-of-indonesias-changing-terror-landscape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/deadly-attacks-a-sign-of-indonesias-changing-terror-landscape\/","title":{"rendered":"Deadly attacks a sign of Indonesia\u2019s changing terror landscape?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Last week was a bloody week for Indonesia. First there was a prison riot on 8\u00a0May at the command headquarters of the Indonesian police\u2019s Mobile Brigade (Brimob), where over a hundred convicted terrorists held a 36-hour standoff. The riot left five officers and one prisoner dead<\/a>. The next day, another police officer was stabbed to death<\/a> in the same area by an alleged terrorist.<\/p>\n

The worst happened on Sunday morning. Suicide bombers attacked three separate churches in Surabaya, Indonesia\u2019s second largest city. The police claimed that the perpetrators were a single family<\/a> (both parents and their four children). Police chief Tito Karnavian noted that the husband was the Surabaya cell leader<\/a> of Jemaah Ansharud Daulah (JAD), an Islamic State (IS)\u2011linked group that the US has deemed a \u2018specially designated global terrorist<\/a>\u2019. There were more than a dozen fatalities, and more than 40\u00a0injured.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, the police shot and killed four suspected terrorists<\/a> in Cianjur, West Java, who were planning another assault against the Brimob headquarters. But hours after the Surabaya attack, several bombs exploded in Sidoarjo<\/a>, a regency on the outskirts of Surabaya, killing three people<\/a>, including the suspected terrorist\u2019s wife and child. Finally, on Monday morning, suspected terrorists detonated explosives<\/a> outside the Surabaya police headquarters, wounding six civilians and four officers.<\/p>\n

So, just within 25 hours in East Java, the attacks left at least<\/a> 28 fatalities and 51 injured, making it the deadliest series of attacks in over a decade. As more details emerge in the coming days and weeks, we\u2019ll have a better sense of what happened. But for now, let me offer some preliminary thoughts.<\/p>\n

First, the events over the past week represent a serious and dangerous escalation of IS\u2011linked attacks inside Indonesia. We haven\u2019t seen a simultaneous, coordinated church bombing since the 2000\u00a0Christmas Eve bombings<\/a> that killed more than a dozen people across eight cities. We also rarely see a series of continuous and coordinated terror attacks by terror groups that span nearly a week, perhaps more. The attacks also marked the first successful attack by female suicide bomber in Indonesia.<\/p>\n

If it\u2019s established that IS\u2011linked groups in Indonesia such as JAD are capable of planning and executing multiple and coordinated attacks for stretches of time, there\u2019s ground for concern.<\/p>\n

Analysts have long warned that even as the terror threat in Poso was winding down and Jemaah Islamiyah continued to lay low, IS\u2011linked groups like JAD and returnees from Syria and Iraq pose a growing new threat in Indonesia<\/a>. The JAD bombers in Surabaya were alleged to have just returned from Syria<\/a>. The police claims that there are over 500\u00a0returnees from Syria or Iraq in Indonesia\u2014although some had estimated that approximately 700\u2013800 Indonesians<\/a> went to those two countries between 2013 and 2017.<\/p>\n

Second, one of the key challenges when it comes to Syria\u2013Iraq returnees is the absence of a more comprehensive and powerful law to deal with them. According to the police, until those returnees commit a \u2018concrete act\u2019 of terrorism, they cannot be arrested. They haven\u2019t broken any laws simply because they \u2018fought\u2019 in Syria or Iraq. The police have also complained about the lack of detention power and authority over suspected terrorists\u2014and therefore their lack of \u2018preventive\u2019 capabilities.<\/p>\n

Following the January\u00a02016 attacks in Jakarta, the Indonesian national legislature began debating a revision to the 2003\u00a0anti-terrorism law currently in place. The debate continues, and centres on a wide range of contentious issues, from \u2018defining\u2019 terrorism to the role of the military, the lack of specificity<\/a> in terror offences and the expansion of detention powers.<\/p>\n

Following the Surabaya attacks, Indonesian President Joko Widodo gave an ultimatum to the national legislature<\/a>, saying that if it can\u2019t pass a new anti-terror law by June, he\u2019ll issue an anti-terror Government Regulation in Lieu of Law (PERPPU) of his own. It\u2019s unclear how the PERPPU would address those contentious issues now being debated by the legislature.<\/p>\n

Third, a new counter-terrorism law\u2014while a step in the right direction\u2014isn\u2019t a panacea for Indonesia\u2019s broader terror landscape. For one thing, despite the narrative that the IS\u2011linked threat is global in nature, domestic challenges continue to shape Indonesia\u2019s terror landscape.<\/p>\n

As one recent study carefully noted<\/a>, Indonesians aren\u2019t lured into joining ISIS simply because of its ideology or propaganda. Instead, the study argues that local political and religious dynamics are central issues. These include, among others, the pre-existing debates over the role of Islam in public and private life; the lack of restrictions and uneven implementation of legislation on social, political, and religious organisations; and the intra-jihadi community competition whereby IS affiliation is used to bolster the credentials and agendas of some clerics and personalities.<\/p>\n

In addition, the nature of the attacks over the past week should be viewed within the broader trajectory of terror attacks in Indonesia over the past decade. As the following chart shows, religious figures and institutions haven\u2019t been targeted to the same degree that the police have been over the past decade. But recently, religious figures and institutions have again become more prominent targets. The Surabaya attacks fit within the pattern that seems bent on exacerbating pre-existing religious cleavages and tensions.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

Indonesia can and should do more to address the growing and increasingly lethal IS\u2011linked threats. But the upcoming debates over the best strategies and solutions, including a possible new anti-terror law, should be conducted with a level-headedness that considers the broader and long-term terror landscape.<\/p>\n

One shouldn\u2019t rush into abandoning the current criminal justice model of counterterrorism in return for a more repressive, or \u2018war-fighting\u2019, one. As Indonesia\u2019s own long history tells us, repressive measures often lead to prolonged and more deadly conflicts in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week was a bloody week for Indonesia. 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