The rise of ISIS caught many by surprise with its swift conquest of Mosul in 2014 and declaration of a caliphate. While some hoped ISIS would not strongly influence stable societies like Indonesia's, hundreds have been seduced by its propaganda and networks, with estimates of Indonesians who have joined ranging from 200 to over 600. ISIS's recruitment poses a real danger as its online and personal outreach is highly sophisticated and effective at identifying and grooming potential supporters. With the numbers being radicalized sharply rising across Asia, Indonesia likely faces a greater terrorism challenge from ISIS than ever before as it transforms existing extremist networks within Indonesian society.

1. The Rise of ISIS
Tempo English Edition
Jakarta, 2 April 2015
Greg Barton
The rise of the Islamic state movement caught the world by surprise. The fall of Mosul,
Iraq’s second largest city on June 10 and the conquest of the northern Tigris river
settlements in the week that followed, leading to the declaration of a caliphate on June
29 was truly shocking. As was the surge of foreign fighters into Syria and Iraq. Even as
the cruel and brutal character of IS was being revealed to the world it's power of
attraction was increasing not decreasing.
We were caught by surprise by the rise of IS not because it was unforeseeable but
rather because we did not wish to see it. The same is true for the flow of young lives to
its cause. The numbers globally, which are now thought to exceed 22,000, are too great
to be ignored but in many places there is still a high level of denial about the scale of the
problem what we are facing. This is particularly true in Southeast Asia. Indonesia has
been quicker to acknowledge the problem than many of its neighbours but many cling
to the hope that it will remain limited in scale.
In Australia and other western democracies the individual stories of young men and
women, many of them literally schoolchildren, who are being drawn from ordinary
families and the comforts of home to devote their lives to a group that we find
repugnant in its barbarity has left us desperately searching for answers.
In Indonesia there was real hope that the magnetic pull of IS would not reach so strongly
into a stable society so far from the chaotic centre of the Muslim world. In the weeks
following the declaration of the caliphate there was an encouraging and largely
universal rejection of its legitimacy by Islamic organisations and leaders across the
spectrum. Indonesian Muslims, it seemed clear, wanted no part in IS's violent project.
When Mosul fell it looked as if relatively few Indonesians were being drawn to the
conflict but by the end of the year it was clear that hundreds had been seduced by this
latest iteration of al-Qaeda. A quarter of the way through 2015 and the numbers remain
unclear. Low estimates start at around 200 but many observers, including BNPT, argue
that more 600 Indonesians have joined either with Jabhat al-Nusra or IS.
There are good reasons for not being careful not to exaggerate the threat posed by IS.
Terrorism works on the principle of leveraging impact through provoking angry
responses. This is seen most clearly in al-Qaeda's 9/11 attacks. An operation that is
estimated to have cost al-Qaeda $500,000 resulted in trillions of dollars being spent in
response and hundreds of thousands of lives lost, and, ironically provided al-Qaeda with

2. ideal conditions to take root in a country where it had previously had no presence. And
in Indonesia mistakes made in responding to Darul Islamextremists in the 1980s laid the
foundations for what would become JI.
Secondly we know that although terrorism is a rising problem globally it is largely affects
failing states. Last year 80% of all loss of life terrorist attacks occurred in just five
countries: Afghanistan and Pakistan Iraq and Syria and Nigeria. Meanwhile, democratic
Indonesia has not only successfully contained the threat of terrorism but has become, in
every sense, the great success story of the Muslim world.
We can be confident that IS has little support in Indonesia but there is, nevertheless, a
real danger of underestimating the threat posed by IS’ recruitment. The signs are not
good. Recent experience with IS radicalisation around the world suggest that Indonesia
will be facing a greater challenge than it has every faced before. In Australia, for
example, 160 Australians have so far travelled to fight in Iraq and Syria. More than 30
have returned and a similar number have been killed leaving at least 100 currently
fighting mostly with Islamic state. Some have come from troubled backgrounds but
many others come from ordinary family homes. Australian society is not perfect and
there are reasons why young Australian Muslims might feel a degree of alienation but
none of this explains why the rates of radicalisation in Australia match those of France
where youth unemployment and overt discrimination are much more serious problems.
Clearly pull-factors much more than push-factors are instrumental in drawing young
lives to the project of the caliphate. This is likely to be as true for Indonesia as it is for
Australia
With the numbers of those being radicalised now rising sharply across Asia there is good
reason to fear that the worst is yet to come in Indonesia. The problem does not lie with
mainstream Indonesian society or with mainstream Indonesian Islam. IS skilfully
exploits social networks to target and prey. IS is better at propaganda and messaging
than any of the terrorist networks that have come before it but it is also doing much
more than simply broadcasting a call to action. Videos, Facebook pages and electronic
magazines all play their role in persuading people to engage with the movement but
inevitably one-on-one follow-up and personal friendships are instrumental. IS runs a
sophisticated global network that is very effective in identifying grooming. Its recruiters
are on the look out for the keen and the naive in chat rooms and outside meeting halls
and are expert in winning their trust and redirecting their lives.
For IS Indonesia presents rich opportunities for recruitment. Extensive, well-established
networks of extremists provide IS with numerous openings. This is despite the fact that
the police have done an outstanding job of responding tactically to the challenge
terrorism. More than a thousand individuals have been being arrested the 12 years
since the first Bali bombing. And most have been successfully prosecuted through
transparent legal processes. Credit must be given for preventing many attacks. But for
all this success the authorities have just barely been keeping pace with a very resilient

3. threat. Seeing how IS has injected fresh energy into Jihadi networks around the world
tells us that it will also transform the scale and nature of the problem within Indonesian
society.
The challenges we face with terrorism in Indonesia as in many parts of the world are
directly linked to developments associated with foreign fighters travelling to
Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 1980s and early 1990s. Afghanistan transformed a
problem that had been simmering since the Darul Islam movement of the 1950s and
linked it to the ideas of a global struggle socialised by al-Qaeda. Several hundred
Indonesians travelled to Afghanistan and many of the hundred plus other South-east
Asian's came to live and operate in Indonesia when they returned from Afghanistan and
Pakistan. And whilst many of the Afghan alumni were unwilling to continue with
terrorist attacks in Indonesia in the post-Suharto period the bombing factions of the
larger JI network have had strong Afghan alumni links. Decades later Afghanistan
continues to cast a long shadow over Southeast Asia quarter of a century
Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), also known as Islamic State in Iraq, and which was later to
become Islamic state in Iraq and Syria, was formed as a result of the insurgency
conditions produced by the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The movement that was formed in
Afghanistan in the last decade of the Cold War now dominates security concerns in the
post-Cold War world. Indonesia is still dealing with the influence of al-Qaeda’s first
generation.
AQI, or al-Qaeda 2.0, drew in thousands of foreign fights but Indonesia was largely
spared. Now IS, effectively al-Qaeda 3.0, is exerting a global influence unlike anything
ever see before. In the space of a couple of years it has drawn in more young
Indonesians than Afghanistan did in a decade. And it is just beginning. We were caught
be surprise by the emergence of IS. The second act of the drama is open us. We must
not overreact but nor must we allow ourselves to be caught by surprise. This third
iteration of ‘al-Qaeda’ represents a more sophisticated, better-resourced and much
more influential movement than that which came before it. The challenge presented is
formidable and will be with us, in one form or another, for a very long time. Have risen
to the tactical challenges of dealing with terrorism Indonesia must now deal began to
engage with the strategic challenges of countering violent extremism.