New Terror Threat Taking Shape in Indonesia

Nasir Abbas was 18 when he left Malaysia to join the Mujahedin guerrilla fighters in Afghanistan.

“To get a new experience an adventure in the land people called Jihad. I knew I would go there and fight there with the mujahedin and I knew that I might not come back alive, and my father said go. In the Islamic faith we believe that all Muslims are our brothers wherever they are. So when we found out that our Muslim brothers in Afghanistan were being attacked by the Russian we felt that we had an obligation to defend them to be together with them. That’s why I felt what I was doing is right and because I was young I felt like this was my chance to have an adventure in my life.”

He became an instructor specializing in weaponry and military strategy.

In his twenties he went on to train hundreds of Indonesian fighters, including the men who carried out the Bali bombing in 2002 that killed more than 200 people.

We are walking around what is now known as ground zero.  There is a car park where a night club once stood and a memorial with the 200 names of the people killed on it.

On that night, just like now, this area was full of tourists from around the world.

Nasir Abbas’s brother-in-law was one of the men who carried out the attack. 

He says he didn’t take part in the attack and spilt with JI over their decision to kill civilians.

“They selected Bali as a target to implement the call of Osama Bin Laden to do revenge against Americans and their allies and to kill the civilians and military anywhere.  So they set-up this area as the Killing zone….this area at the corner as the killing zone….it’s very crazy minded, they killed unarmed people, civilians.”

The government has arrested more than 700 suspected terrorists and killed dozens more in an attempt to root out militants.

Nasir Abbas served 11 months in jail for immigration violations but has never been found guilty of involvement with a terrorist attack.

While in jail he became a police informer.  He is now a key member of the governments ‘de-radicalisation’ program- that works inside prison to try and change the mind-set of convict militants.

Now Nasir is worried the emergence of the group the Islamic state of Iraq and Syria or ISIS will create a new generation of Indonesian terrorists.

“Many radical groups are sending their youth, their teenagers their men, their followers to go to Syria. It’s in the hundreds around 3 to 4 hundred from different groups.  It’s their chance to have an experience to carry a gun, to carry arms, to fighting in the field, to fight with the other Mujahedin against what they call the enemy, what they can’t do in Indonesia. To practice, to have a new experience and at the same time to add to their knowledge whenever they are ready if they have the intention to do any operation in Indonesia they have enough knowledge (to do it).

Q. You trained the Bali bombers in Afghanistan—you taught them how to make bombs and weapons and when they returned they carried out acts of violence here…are you concerned that when Indonesian return from Iraq and Syria they will do the same thing?

Maybe some of them, a few of them, who have the intention to do an operation but they didn’t have enough knowledge but now they have the knowledge and they continue to carry out that intention.

Q. So you’re saying they could carry out acts of violence in Indonesia?

Yes they will be a potential threat for Indonesia.”

Speaking in Indonesian he says the groups in Syria and Iraq are not as disciplined as the Mujahedin groups were during his time in Afghanistan.

He says he worries that they will find it hard to control themselves when they return.

He is also concerned that could enflame a Sunni Shia conflict in Indonesia—something that has largely been absent from Indonesia.

“In Syria it’s very clear between Sunni and Shia. So it will have an impact on the mental (thinking) on the Indonesians who go there so when they come back here it will enlarge the feeling of hatred, the feel of doing something to give a threat to the Shia, so it’s potentially dangerous.” 

This eight-minute video in Bahasa Indonesian posted online says it an obligation for Muslims to join the group.

The Indonesia government has blocked the video and is warning that anyone found guilty of supporting ISIS, will be considered as having pledged “allegiance to a foreign country” and this could result in them losing their Indonesian citizenship.

Balinese Muslim leader Haji Bambang, is deeply worried about recruitment drives like this.

He was at the Bali bombing site shortly after the explosion. He helped burnt survivors get to hospital and removed dead bodies.

“At that moment I started to loose my sense of dignity and respect in the Balinese community because my extend family is a mix of Hindus and Muslims…. They started asking me…. ‘Is it true that the Al-koran teaches people to do that?...They said.. “Maybe the whole time the Al-koran was teaching Muslims to do this and you were hiding it form us?” 

He is calling on the police to do more to make sure the conflict doesn’t spread to Indonesian.

“Don't ignore this.  Our armed forces need to act on it. We are now in a period of transition from one president to the next.  I hope that the new president Jokowi and Vice president Kalla are not weak in the face of terrorism-- they need to be firm, hard.  Yes we have human rights and democracy but if you are threatening the nation, and threatening to kill many innocent people you must act.  Don't wait till a bomb has gone off and then react, this is the time for our intelligence agencies to act.”

Many of the prisoners jailed for their involvement in militant group Jemaah Islamiyah are due to be released within the next year.

Nyoman Pasirini was working in a restaurant in Jimbaran bay in 2005 when a suicide bomber attacked.

She lost her hearing in one ear and has scalpel still in her arm.  She is watching developments closely.

“The ones who were only given short sentences, I have heard some of them still have hatred in their hearts, now of course that makes me frightened. They can tell their group to carry out an attack again. Who knows but I hope and pray that it doesn’t happen again but if you think about it their friends were killed by the police they must have a feeling of wanting revenge.”