To capitalize on recent arrests, Jakarta must upgrade its surveillance and financial tracking tools.
The swift and near-simultaneous
arrests late last month of 11 individuals allegedly preparing to bomb U.S. and
other Western targets throughout Java, Indonesia's most populated island,
should serve as a wake-up call to Asia's national security establishment,
lawmakers and leaders. The foiled plot would have been just the latest in a
flurry of terrorist activity by members of Islamist organizations, all of which
are registered and legally sanctioned by the Indonesian government.
During the arrests, Indonesia's
elite counter-terrorism squad found explosive material, a bomb-making manual,
detonators and a list of targets that included the American and Australian
embassies in Jakarta and the American consulate in Surabaya, according to
Indonesian government officials. Each of those arrested appears to be a
card-carrying member of the Sunni Movement for Indonesian Society, also known
as Hasmi, an obscure Islamist organization few had heard of previously.
The group denies any terrorist
activities or links to those arrested. In the wake of the raids, leader Adi
Mulyadi told the media that "Hasmi is a non-violent organization and we
focus on preaching." However, counterterrorism experts say the group is
linked to Indonesia's Islamic Defenders' Front, an Islamist organization known
for hate crimes. Hasmi has engaged in demonstrations against Christian churches
in West Java and Israel. The ultimate objective of Hasmi, like other Islamist
organizations, is to create an Indonesian Islamic Republic based on sharia law.
The recent arrests come on the heels
of other planned attacks in Indonesia. In September, law-enforcement officials
revealed they had uncovered cells throughout the country with links to Jemaah
Ansharut Tauhid (JAT), a well-known Islamist organization whose leader, Bakar
Basyir, is also reportedly the spiritual leader of Jamaah Islamiah, the al
Qaeda affiliate that operates in large swaths of Asia. According to National
Police spokesman Brigadier General Boy Rafli Amar, two of the detainees from
the September raids had plans to bomb Jakarta's parliament and kill members of
the country's law-enforcement community. "They recruited, invited young
men to be trained in a military-style jihadi camp and bought bomb-making
materials," he said
All told, in the last half year,
Indonesian counterterrorism officials have arrested nearly 50 militants for
plotting attacks targeting foreigners and Indonesians. The groups whose members
have been arrested — Hasmi, the Islamic Defenders' Front and JAT — are all
sanctioned by the government and free to operate as they wish. It now appears
that militant Indonesian groups not hitherto engaged in overt violence are
crossing the divide and using low-intensity conflict and other terrorist
tactics to achieve their objectives.
What can Indonesia do in response?
As a start, Jakarata should blacklist terrorist organizations and their
members, ensuring that law enforcement and intelligence services can track them
and providing the judiciary with the authority to put them behind bars.
This hasn't happened the way it
should so far because, for domestic reasons, Jakarta appears to be pandering to
radical Islamists. The international community until now has placed much of the
blame at the feet of the country's president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who
many believe has looked the other ways as militants have attacked minority
groups, including Christians, Shiites and Ahmadi Muslims.
Indonesia should also shore up laws
that place controls on its financial sector to protect against abuse by illicit
actors. According to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which combats
money laundering and terrorism financing, Indonesia has strategic deficiencies
in these areas that need to be addressed expeditiously. In the FATF's view,
Indonesia has yet to adequately criminalize terrorism finance or establish
procedures to identify and freeze terrorist assets.
Since February 2010, Jakarta has
been promising to work with the FATF and other international organizations such
as the Asia Pacific Group to redress this problem, but meaningful steps have
yet to be taken. These laws must be passed and enforced if Indonesia is to curb
the militant Islamist threat. Failure to do so sends the wrong message to
terrorists, their financiers and the international community.
Finally, law enforcement and
intelligence analysts must become proficient in the innovative tools developed
in the last decade, including geospatial and network analysis tools, to attack
networks and uncover financial links. Palantir, Analyst's Notebook, ArcGIS, and
Google GOOG +1.90% Earth — tools many government
officials do not use or are not even aware of — make it easier to manage and
sort through vast reams of data. They also facilitate the tracking of financial
flows and smuggling routes. Ignoring these innovations hampers the ability to
capture members of rogue organizations and put them behind bars.
In the last decade, Indonesia has
been a staunch ally of the U.S. and other Western democracies in the war
against terrorism. It has arrested and ultimately jailed hundreds of rogue
actors who intended to engage in attacks around the globe. Many countries and
policy makers admire Indonesia's outstanding record and its demonstrated desire
to challenge the threat of terrorism.
Yet in order to ensure continued success,
it is critical that Indonesia blacklist organizations engaging in violence,
protect its financial sector from abuse and provide its analysts with the tools
they need to track and capture those who mean citizens harm.
By Avi Jorisch, a former U.S.
Treasury Department official, is a senior fellow for counterterrorism at the
American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, D.C. The Wall Street Journal
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