KUALA LUMPUR – The likelihood of radical extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) making a comeback via an offshoot group following its supposed complete disbandment in Indonesia is minimal, but not impossible, said security experts.
The group, which claimed responsibility for the fatal 2002 Bali bombings as well as several other terrorist attacks, was formed in Indonesia in 1993 with known links to the Islamist militant organisation Al-Qaeda before losing most of its leadership – resulting in its decision to disband in June this year.
On December 21, the republic’s National Counter-Terrorism Agency (BNPT) announced that it had held the final disbandment ceremony for JI and may consider reduced sentences for ex-members still serving time in prison.
Security practitioner and researcher Munira Mustaffa highlighted that the disbandment was not a “sudden decision” as deliberations on the matter had kicked off years ago, amid intense crackdowns executed by Indonesian and regional authorities.
The disbandment, she pointed out when contacted by Scoop, saw most key members and supporters engaging in talks with the government, while also publicly renouncing their JI-linked beliefs and pledging allegiance to the state as a way of signalling their reintegration into society.
“While it’s true that a small number of members within (JI) rejected the dissolution, the risk of them forming an offshoot remains low, given their age as well as the significant time and resources – which they no longer possess – required to establish a new organisation,” she said.
She added that to her knowledge, the final active JI cells were based in Indonesia, with no remaining quarters left in other Southeast Asian nations.
“The small number of (JI) members sent to Syria to fight alongside HTS (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham) and other Syrian rebel groups are aware of the disbandment.
“They have accepted JI’s dissolution and are prepared to return,” said Munira, who is the founder and executive director of security consultancy Chasseur Group.
HTS, which has been historically linked to Al-Qaeda before distancing measures in recent years, refers to the main Islamist faction which led the uprising that toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Meanwhile, academic Ahmad El-Muhammady Muhammad Uthman said that credit should be given to Indonesia’s BNPT for “excellently accomplishing” their task in persuading former JI members to accept Pancasila, the nation’s founding principles.
However, Ahmad, who works closely with the Malaysian government in terrorist rehabilitation and deradicalisation programmes, posited that “hardcore” JI individuals could resurface “at the right time” in the future.
Agreeing that the movement could reemerge under a different name while maintaining its ideology and tactics, the assistant professor at the International Islamic University Malaysia’s (IIUM) International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation said the neutralising of an organisation does not necessarily mean the eradication of its ideologies.
“(JI’s) ideology remains in the mind of some dedicated members and exists in the form of books, audio recordings, videos and so on. This ideology can be recalled again at the right time,” he told Scoop.
He explained that JI’s ideology is reactive to triggering factors occurring at the domestic, regional and global levels. In particular, he said that events such as war and conflict in the Middle East could trigger JI’s resurrection.
Regional and domestic clashes linked to religion, politics and perceived “injustices” could also trigger backlash from JI, cautioned Ahmad, who is also an associate fellow at the Netherlands’ International Centre for Counter-Terrorism.
As such, he proposed continuous monitoring efforts for former JI members as well as the holding of awareness programmes for the public on the danger of radical extremists narratives.
Noting that Malaysian authorities have also taken “effective measures” to uproot JI’s remnants, he backed the implementation of the Malaysian Action Plan on Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (MyPCVE).
The action plan, which was launched on September 30 to combat terrorist activities in the nation, was developed to coordinate actions to deal with the threat of extremist ideologies based on four cores, namely prevention, enforcement, rehabilitation and reinforcement.
Similarly, Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University’s security studies professor Rohan Gunaratna emphasised that while the mainstream brand of JI has been disbanded, its members and families as well as supporters and sympathisers should be deradicalised through rehabilitation programmes.
He told Scoop that such a process aimed at transforming a group into a non-violent entity could take up to one generation, with the help of cooperation between law enforcement and intelligence services, as well as religious and educational institutes.
“In addition to Indonesia, which is the centre of gravity of JI, foreign governments should monitor former leaders, members and followers of JI to ensure that they do not return to violence and extremism.
“For a threat group like JI which engaged in violence including killing civilians for political reasons, it is vital to replace their exclusivist ideology with pluralism,” he added, warning that failure to ensure proper deradicalisation could result in a similar attack as the one against a police station in Ulu Tiram, Johor, May this year.
Shortly after the attack, which saw the deaths of two police officers and the suspect, police said the 21-year-old suspect who carried out the attack might be a JI member.
However, this point was later corrected to the suspect’s 62-year-old father being a former JI member.
Five family members of the Ulu Tiram attacker – his parents and three siblings – have since been charged with various terrorism-related offences and are awaiting trial.
More recently, two JI-linked Malaysians, Mohammed Farik Amin and Mohammed Nazir Lep, were repatriated here after being detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006, for their involvement in the Bali bombings and the 2003 attack on the JW Marriott in Jakarta. – December 25, 2024