Terrorists Arrested in Jakarta

By Kenneth Conboy

As with most terrorist developments in Indonesia, there was good news mixed with bad regarding Tuesday’s arrests of five Islamic extremists in Jakarta and Bogor. First the good news:

• Just as was the case with the terrorist arrests in Palembang, South Sumatra, earlier this year, the authorities were apparently well aware of the presence of the Jakarta-based terrorists and were biding their time to identify further extremists before closing the net. It has been reported that the police had been keeping them under surveillance for several months, at least. This is comforting, as it appears like the authorities—and especially the police—have a better handle on the radical threat than most people give them credit.
• The exact ideological affiliation of the Jakarta/Bogor cell is still uncertain. One police source claimed that they may have been tied to Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), but this is increasingly becoming meaningless given the degree to which JI has atrophied. Other sources indicate that they were tied to Kompak, a Central Java-based group that dispatched jihadists to Central Sulawesi and the Malukus during the Habibie and Gus Dur administrations. Unlike JI, Kompak, though violent, does not have a history of attacking Western targets.
• The Jakarta/Bogor cell members were reportedly caught with some bullets, a few kilos of explosive material, and bomb-making manuals. But while these manuals might describe sophisticated circuitry, translating this into reality requires personnel with considerable training in electronics—something that JI (and Kompak, for that matter) probably lost when JI bomb-maker Dr. Azhari died in a November 2005 gun fight.
• Noordin Top, arguably the most anti-West of the JI remnants on the lam, is thought to be staying one step ahead of the law in rural Central Java. That he has not been caught is cause for concern. That said, it is highly unlikely that Top has had the luxury of recruiting martyrs and arranging the logistics for a major terrorist strike like those that took place between 2002-2005.
• Several of the terrorists arrested in recent years have not been intent on targeting Western interests, but fellow Indonesians. The cell caught around Jogjakarta in June 2007, for instance, was contemplating a strike against a Christian university in Central Java. The Jakarta cell arrested on Tuesday, according to the media, wanted to sabotage the fuel dump in North Jakarta. There was also an earlier JI plan to attack a police anniversary celebration in Semarang. Western interests can take some comfort that the terrorists’ crosshairs have shifted.

Now the bad news. According to multiple sources, the Indonesian government intends to announce the exact date of the execution of the three Bali bombers. This announcement is likely to take place before the end of this month. The government, meantime, has repeatedly vowed to conduct the executions before the end of this year.

In announcing the executions ahead of time, the government arguably makes it more likely that radicals will plan reprisals to coincide with that date. Indeed, it cannot yet be discounted that the cell arrested on Tuesday intended to coincide its fuel storage attack with the fate of the Bali Three. All of which, from a counter-terrorism point of view, makes for some interesting weeks ahead.

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