Bali and the faceless foe

Bali and the faceless foe

Experts' early assessment of the Saturday evening bomb blasts
in Bali points to the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) as the party
responsible. Two of its principal operatives, Azahari Husin and
Noordin Top, are believed to be behind the attacks. Both are
reputed to be bomb-makers and have been on the run for several
years. If Indonesian counter-terrorism experts and independent
specialists such as the Singapore-based Dr Rohan Gunaratna are
correct about JI involvement, this says that it remains a
formidable force for destruction despite arrests of key figures
and organizational disruptions in several of the Southeast Asian
countries it operates in. The question is, what would it take to
disable the organization and its collaborator outfits like the
Abu Sayyaf? Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand have been more
successful at holding the line, but it is acknowledged this is an
interminable campaign.

But Indonesia and the Philippines continue to be vulnerable,
despite some notable captures and prosecutions. JI's trail of
signature hits in Indonesia would suggest it has regenerative
capability that would trouble its most determined adversaries.
Starting with the first Bali attack in 2002, it has managed to
mount deadly strikes each year (the Jakarta Marriott Hotel in
2003, the Australian embassy last year). And now Bali 2005, with
26 dead so far. Since April 1999, it has been associated with
some 50 successful and attempted terror incidents across the
Indonesian archipelago.

Work on the difficult ideological front to defeat a virulent
form of thinking will go on for decades. For the here and now, it
bears repeating that sifting of raw intelligence remains the one
credible way to thwart such attacks. Security agencies should not
be discouraged that the attacks in Bali's Kuta and Jimbaran areas
took place despite intelligence reported by a number of countries
for months that Indonesia, specifically Jakarta, was being
targeted around this period.

The problem was much of the information lacked details, so
critical for meaningful intelligence work. The public will never
know of successful infiltrations and the use of informers, and of
terrorist operations that were aborted because the heat was too
much. There is comfort to be drawn here. The hope is that the
quality of intelligence evaluation improves faster than a fervid
fatalism is growing.
-- The Straits Times, Singapore