Shocking news has arrived that Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a hardline Indonesian Islamist organization once one of the most feared terrorist organizations in Southeast Asia, has been disbanded.
The announcement was made in a video released on June 30, in which 16 JI leaders said the group was officially disbanding and pledged allegiance to the Indonesian government.
Abu Rusdan, a senior leader of the group, said in a prepared statement that JI is now “ready to make a positive contribution to Indonesia’s progress and dignity.”
The Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) confirmed the video was authentic, and IPAC’s Sidney Jones said, “It’s too early to say what the outcome will be, but the men who signed the statement have enough respect and credibility within their organizations that it should be widely accepted.”
Founded in 1993 by Indonesian clerics Abu Bakar Bashir and Abdullah Sungkar, JI was most active in the early and mid-2000s, when the group, which received training and funding in Afghanistan, carried out a number of deadly attacks in Indonesia.
These include the Christmas Eve church bombings in 2000 that killed 18 people, the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people and injured more than 200, and the 2003 attack on the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta that killed 12 people.
However, the story of JI’s disbandment is somewhat contradictory: the group had previously “disbanded” in the wake of the 2002 Bali bombings, after which its members split over differences about whether attacks on civilians were acceptable, as well as broader leadership issues.
The day after the October 2002 attacks, JI was also added to UN Security Council Resolution 1267, which designated Osama bin Laden and his associates as terrorists and imposed sanctions on individuals and entities with ties to al-Qaida, bin Laden, and the Taliban.
JI was also outlawed by the Indonesian government in 2007.
However, since the Bali bombings, JI has continued to exist in secrecy and has turned its attention to a network of Islamic boarding schools, despite being banned by the Indonesian government.Pesantren)onwards Dakwaor missionary activities.
JI members continue to reside throughout Indonesia and abroad, including in Syria and Yemen.
Analysts and Indonesian authorities have warned for years that JI continues to raise funds for terror attacks and provide military and weapons training for its members. JI suspects are periodically arrested around the country for allegedly continuing to plot attacks.
But the facts speak for themselves: JI has not carried out any violent attacks in Indonesia since 2009.
Is this the result of Indonesian authorities’ laudable counterterrorism operations, or does it signal that the group has morphed from a violent organisation once focused on establishing an Islamic caliphate across Southeast Asia into a different kind of organisation with a mostly ageing membership?
Perhaps it’s a little of both, coupled with the directionless and divided leadership that has plagued the group since the Bali bombings.
But JI is much larger and more complex than simply a “terrorist organization” focused on planning and carrying out violent acts – the narrow standard typically assigned to assess the continuing threat of extremist groups.
Rather, it is a network of individuals with a common history who, in many cases, continue to live, work, and raise their families together across the country, while also building the critical infrastructure to support themselves. This includes the countless businesses run by JI members, the aforementioned network of Islamic boarding schools, legal aid groups, and shared housing, to name just a few.
Members regularly hold social events and meet-ups and travel around the country to visit each other.
One JI member told The Diplomat: “When we see each other, it’s like a high school reunion, but we’re all former JI members.”
So it is likely to be an organisation that is unclear to dismantle, despite assurances from its leaders that they intend to do so.
Does this mean these individuals will never meet again, or that they will refrain from planning future acts of violence, something they haven’t done since 2009?
What about the schools, businesses and communities they built? Perhaps they will survive, but in any case, not under the banner of the JI, an organization that is already banned.
With the complex social structures embedded in such extremist organisations that hold them together, can JI really be dissolved or disbanded?
