Cut out the roots of terror, govt told

Jakarta | Fri, 03/12/2010 9:50 AM

Dead weight: A coffin containing the body of slain terror suspect Dulmatin is loaded into an ambulance at the National Police Hospital in East Jakarta on Thursday. Dulmatin, who was shot dead in a terror raid Tuesday in Pamulang, Banten province, was taken to his home village in Pemalang, Central Java, for burial. JP/Wendra Ajistyatama

Former State Intelligence Agency (BIN) chief Hendropriyono says the government should move to stop inflamatory sermons or risk worsening extremism and terrorism.

“It’s a big mistake for the government to turn a deaf ear to the provocative sermons that preach hatred toward citizens of different religious faiths,” Hendropriyono told The Jakarta Post.

He said that stern action is justified because Indonesia has an anti-terror law that allows it.

He said that terrorism and fundamentalism is like a tree. “Terrorism is analogous to the stem and the leaves while the fundamentalism is the root, which should be removed.”

Otherwise, he added, terrorism would grow healthily on the strong base of fundamentalism.

Hendropriyono won notoriety with a raid on an Islamic fundamentalist group in 1989 when he headed the Lampung military command.

Meanwhile, Din Syamsuddin, chairman of the country’s second largest Muslim organization, Muhammadiyah, said without the presence of such mainstream Islamic organizations as Muhammadiyah and the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), even more Indonesian Muslims would be turning to terrorism.

“It is not true that NU’s and Muhammadiyah’s propagations have not reached the grassroots level. In fact we carry out propagations at mosques in towns and villages.

“As a result, the majority of Muslim communities are well guarded from terrorist ideology,” Din, who was in Frankfurt, told The Jakarta Post by SMS.

He added it was not easy to reach out to members of terrorist groups, as they usually avoided events run by organizations outside of their circles, such as NU and Muhammadiyah.

The role of large Muslim organizations such as Muhammadiyah and NU, which together claim to have over 60 million followers nationwide, has been questioned after the continuing terrorist threat.

To the surprise of many, terrorists are present amid the unsuspecting community.

NU deputy chairman Masdar Farid Mas’udi said this could be attributed to larger Muslim organizations rather than the ordinary people.

“Our organizational structure should also exist at the neighborhood level… We will discuss this issue, among others, in our upcoming congress from March 22-27,” Masdar told the Post.

Meanwhile, noted Muslim scholar Azyumardi Azra said Islamic organizations should not be blamed for not noticing terrorist activities within their neighborhood.

He said the terror group’s activities in Pamulang, for example, would normally go unnoticed despite the area’s crowded neighborhood because the inhabitants are working people who leave home early in the morning and return at night, and generally don’t know each other well enough.

“Of course everyone should be responsible for what happens around them in one way or another, the government that should take the most responsibility,” Azyumardi said.

“Organizations such as NU and Muhammadiyah may be responsible to reach out to the grassroots level, including potential terrorism, but they’re not equipped to do so.

“It is the government’s duty to provide these resources,” he added.

Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) deputy chairman Amidhan said the police’s recent discovery of terrorist activities in Pamulang, Banten, and Aceh did not indicate the larger Muslim communities’ failure to monitor and curb such activities.

“There’s nothing unusual with one or two people being influenced by terrorist groups. The general public is not as keen as security officers in detecting terrorist activity,” Amidhan said.

Police officer, two civilians killed in Aceh firefight

The government's campaign against terrorist groups in Aceh escalated this week with a police officer and another civilian losing their lives in a skirmish.

National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Edward Aritonang confirmed on Friday the deaths of one of his officers and the civilian. The police officer was identified as First. Brig. Boas Woisiri and the civilian was Nurbari.

Aritonang said additional groups of officers were deployed to assist their counterparts in pursuing the terrorist suspects.

"The terrorists knew the field better than us and they held the higher ground so they could monitor our movements and positions," Edward told a press conference.

Besides the "home-ground advantage", he also admitted that the terrorists were better armed and equipped than the police.

From Wednesday to Thursday, Aceh and National Police teams raided a suspected armed terrorist group in Meunasah Tunong village, Aceh Besar.

Besides the two deaths, dozens were injured, including nine police officers.

Last week, the police raided another group in Jantho, Aceh Besar, where another civilian was killed in the crossfire.

The police have maintained that they had warned villagers, including the two dead civilians, about the raid.

Aceh Police chief Insp. Gen. Aditya Warman said the police were collecting more information on the group. So far, they suspected that the group had made make-shift military camps in Aceh's dense forests.

"They freely conduct military training in Aceh's forests because they think Aceh is a safe haven for them," Aditya said.

He said the police had found uniforms that resembled Malaysian military fatigues, binoculars, T-shirts emblazoned with Arabic text and several books on Ali "Muklas" Gufron. Muklas was sentenced to death for his role in the 2002 Bali bombings. He was executed along Amrozi in November 2008.

"Based on this evidence, we believe they have links with existing terrorist groups in Indonesia," Aditya went on.

On the other hand, he said, the police had not found any evidence that linked the group with the Free Aceh Movement, although several local figures had joined the suspected terrorist group.

Aceh Police said they suspected the group only used Aceh as the training ground, not as a target.

"They use Aceh as a recruitment and training base," he said.

Aritonang said that, as of Friday, as many as 14 people related to recent terrorist activity in Aceh have been arrested. Thirteen of whom have been taken to the Mobile Brigade prison in Kelapa Dua, Depok for further questioning while another was being questioned by local police in Aceh.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has called on police to not underestimate the terrorists. Yudhoyono said they had chosen Aceh as their new "playground" in the hope that the government would not become aware of their existence.