Why Indonesian Authorities Cannot Come Out and Say it Was Jemaah Islamiyah: Pandering to the Islamists

By Zachary Abuza

"They (the bombers) come from a new group," Bali police chief Made Mangku Pastika told reporters on Friday, 7 October. "A new generation means that (they) are not known by the old group." While he did not rule out links with JI, he gave reported the sense that they were a fundamentally different organization.

Yet, Indonesian police also believe that Zulkarnaen, JI�s chief of military operations, ordered the attack and that Dr. Azahari bin Hussin and Noordin Mohammad Top, both senior JI members, are believed to have been the chief planners, bomb-makers and recruiters. Indeed, one of the most important clues to date are three phone calls Zulkarnaen�s wife made to Bali days before the attacks.

So which one is it? Was it JI or not JI?

This is not a new group, a distinct organization, with its own command system, hierarchy, and goals. JI is just a very horizontal and exceptionally compartmentalized organization. It has a very rigid cell structure that places paramount importance on operational security. Of course leaders do not know who cell members are. That is the point of a cellular-based organization; so that an arrest can never lead police to more than a handful of other members. These cell members often form their own organizations (Kompak in Ambon, for example) that simply have a more local geographical range of operations and activities. But that does not mean that they are completely autonomous or that they are working at odds against JI�s goals. This is just a very loose horizontal organization

Moreover, we have to understand that when Indonesian officials say that this is a new organization, we have to understand the political realities. In September 2004, newly elected president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) announced that he would ban JI only after he had proof that the organization exists. Under the current law, membership within JI is technically not illegal and Indonesian official have hid behind ludicrous claims that since JI is not registered, it cannot be banned, nor can they claim that it is pointless to ban something that "is not a formal organization with card-carrying members." There is intense international pressure on the Indonesian government to ban JI, but no politician in the world�s largest Muslim community has the political courage to ban an organization that a) simply translates as �Islamic community,� and b) many Muslims does not believe really exists. If SBY is going to ban any organization, it cannot be called �Jemaah Islamiyah,� but must be a new �fringe group.� This is politics, not reality.

Indonesian police announced that they had detained a Malaysian suspect in the Bali blast, but suggested it was not one of the masterminds, Noordin Mohammad Top or Dr. Azahari bin Hussin. The suspect was described by police as someone who had come to Indonesia �to preach.�

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