1. 21/03/2016 3:04 pmGet ready for more terrorist attacks in Jakarta | afr.com
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Get ready for more terrorist attacks in Jakarta
An Indonesian policeman stands guard in front of the site of the January 14 Jakarta attacks. Getty Images
by Greg Barton
Those behind the attacks in Jakarta on January 14 desperately hoped to emulate the
November attacks last year in Paris. This time they fell far short. The attackers,
contrary to initial impressions, were entirely locally organised and failed at almost
every level. Four innocent lives were lost but they had clearly hoped to take many
more.
Although ready to give their own lives they were ill-prepared, ill-equipped and had
not properly thought through their plan of attack. Their crude improvised explosive
devices (IEDs) were ineffective, killing only the bombers themselves. It is hard to
imagine what the attackers realistically expected to achieve when they deployed in
the middle of Jakarta that January morning.
Even before the attacks, awareness of the danger posed by the globalising impact of
so-called Islamic State (IS) radicalisation in the region was high. Since December,
Indonesian police had been acting on information that IS supporters linked to Syrian-
based Indonesian IS leader Bahrun Naim were planning an attack. Through
December and January a number of Naim's associates were arrested and several
planned attacks interrupted. As the more expert and better prepared militants were

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taken out of the picture, it was left to a 'B team' of locally organised amateurs to step
in.
The elite police counterterrorism unit, Special Detachment 88 (Densus), deserves
much credit not only for its rapid response to the attacks, but also for containing the
threat in weeks and months prior. Sustained success and development of capacity
since the 2002 Bali attacks has positioned Densus well to deal with the new threat.
Yet there remains much to be concerned about. It is probable that more than 500
Indonesians have travelled to Syria and Iraq to live and fight for IS. As the fight
against IS in the Middle East turns into a long war, its influence across Indonesia and
Southeast Asia will continue to grow.
Extremism on the rise
Whether due to a spirit of rivalry or some more complex alchemy, Jihadi extremism of
all kinds – not just support for IS – is on the rise in the region. Recent reports suggest
that the old Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) network has now recovered to a force comparable
to its pre-Bali attack period, with around 2000 committed militants.
Even among those who unambiguously support IS, rivalries threaten to increase
recruitment as factions compete to launch successful attacks. The longer IS
maintains its 'caliphate' in the Middle East, the greater the numbers that will be
drawn into the gravitational pull of this unprecedented Jihadi brand. Not even al-
Qaeda in its heyday had the drawing power that IS now exercises.
All four of the January attackers visited the prison island of Nusa Kambangan in the
weeks leading up to the attack. There they sought the blessing of charismatic IS
supporter Abdurrahman Aman. One attacker, Sunakim (alias Afif), was a former
detainee, having been arrested in 2010 and sentenced to a seven year jail term for
his role in a terrorist training camp in Aceh. Bahrun Naim himself was arrested the
same year and sentenced to two and half years on charges of weapons possession.
Since previous attacks in Jakarta in July 2009, there have been more than 40 similar
cases of clear recidivism by former terrorism detainees.
Plans to place influential detainees in isolation cells suggest that authorities are
finally responding to the threat posed by Indonesia's large population of detainees
convicted on terrorism charges in its overcrowded and notoriously porous prison
system.

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Several hundred of those currently detained on terrorism charges will be released in
the next few years. The government has recently announced legislative reform
targeting IS supporters. But new laws alone will not be able to contain the threat
posed by recycled militants. And attempts to pass and apply new legislation that is
seen to be overly draconian risks a backlash that compounds current problems.
Future attacks
IS, for all its drawing power, is presently unpopular in mainstream Indonesian society.
Those who support it are seen as being guilty of sedition. The January attacks
strengthened this sentiment. But IS is a formidable machine. It is led by expert
marketers and strategic planners who exploit popular attitudes to turn the young
against the establishment.
IS supporters portray themselves as the true champions of the global Muslim ummah
(community). They will exploit any miscalculation by authorities cracking down on
extremism. As IS faces a year of great military challenges in the Middle East, it will
continue the campaign it began last year of outrageous attacks on soft targets and
exploiting its notoriety to feign potency.
The first ever attack in South-east Asia in the name of IS saw poorly-constructed
IEDs and low-power non-automatic weapons deployed by ill-prepared amateurs.
Future attacks – and they will certainly come – may well see the use of military
assault rifles of the kind uncommon in Indonesia but plentiful in the neighbouring
Philippines. They are also likely to see more expert direction and organisation in
orchestrating attacks.
One of the key lessons to take from the November 13 attacks in Paris is not to
underestimate the enemy. A principal organiser, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, is now
thought to have been involved in four of the six terrorism plots thwarted in France in
2015. Prior to Paris, Abaaoud and his motley gang of associates, most of them
known to the authorities for petty crimes, seemed pathetic figures and were all too
easy to dismiss.
Indonesians are generally well-prepared to face the challenges ahead. But those
challenges are likely to get much more serious in the coming year.
Greg Barton is professor of global Islamic politics at the Alfred Deakin Institute and co-
director of the Australian Intervention Support Hub (AISH) at Deakin University and the
ANU. This article is part of a series from East Asia Forum (www.eastasiaforum.org) in

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the Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University.