Indonesia raises ante in the war on terrorism

Endy M. Bayuni, Jakarta

The death of Malaysian terror master Azahari bin Husin in a gun battle with police outside a bungalow in the East Java hill resort of Batu on Wednesday marks a new phase in the war against terror that Indonesia began three years ago.

His death will indeed be the first major breakthrough for Detachment 88, a specially trained antiterrorist force set up by the National Police in the wake of the first devastating bomb attacks in Bali on Oct. 12, 2002.

Azahari, along with his fellow countryman Noordin M. Top, have become household names in the wrong sense of the word. The Malaysian pair has been identified as the masterminds behind a series of major terrorist attacks in Indonesia, dating back to the 2002 bombings of two night clubs in Bali. Since then, they have added to their list the suicide bombing at the J.W. Marriott hotel in Jakarta in August, 2003, the car bomb attack outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta in September, 2004, and the suicide bombs in two restaurants in Bali last month.

In all these attacks, their trademarks were clear to the police -- so much so that people began to ask why two wanted aliens could be on the run for more than three years and continue to terrorize the nation without being found.

In the wake of the second round of bomb attacks on Bali last month, we learned that Azahari and Noordin had been able to recruit and train new suicide bombers to do their dirty work, as well as raise the necessary money. They may be the two most wanted men in Indonesia, but most definitely they have not been running.

According to the police, they had almost cornered Noordin in a hideout in Semarang earlier on Wednesday, but he managed to escape just before the raid took place. Azahari, by contrast, was not so lucky. Members of Detachment 88, led by Insp. Gen. Gorries Mere, had the house in Batu surrounded.

There was a shootout and Azahari and two accomplices threw bombs at the officers before one of the bombs exploded and killed all three men inside. The police claim that Azahari blew himself and two others up must be treated carefully. Azahari may have trained suicide bombers, but he was not suicidal himself.

For the last three years, the failure to catch Azahari and Noordin has been a slap in the face for the National Police, whose task it is, along with the State Intelligence Agency (BIN), to lead the Indonesian war on terror. Not only have they let the two Malaysians slip through their fingers, they also seemed to be one step behind as the pair continued to commit their evil deeds.

There have been many blunders, too, such as the raid on a house in Bandung from which the two were able to escape, and the wrongful arrest of several people who looked like them.

No wonder foreign experts, including Singapore's grand old man Lee Kuan Yew, unkindly describe Indonesia as a safe haven for those associated with Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), the Southeast Asian terrorist network with ambitions of turning the entire region into an Islamic state. Many foreign governments have also accused Indonesia of not playing its part in fighting the growing threat of international and regional terrorism.

Western governments, like the United States, Australia and Europe, have also poured money and resources in to help beef up the capabilities of the Indonesian Police and intelligence services in the counterterrorism arena. Members of Detachment 88, for example, are trained by Western experts.

The failure to arrest the two Malaysians has overshadowed the other achievements Indonesia has made in this war on terror.

From the very beginning, Indonesia was determined to stick to the rule of law, including the presumption of innocence for suspected terrorists, in waging this war. The country has caught and sent to jail many terrorists -- some are even waiting on death row now -- for their parts in the bomb attacks going back to 2003. One of these is JI spiritual leader Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, who is serving time for his part in the first Bali bombing.

This is a lot more than the United States, Australia and other countries have done in their own campaigns against terror. Prosecutions are rare or even non-existent in some of these countries.

There have been times when the government came under pressure to give the security forces, including the military, extra powers, such as detaining people without charge and other draconian measures that supposedly could help them pursue this war more effectively. This did not, however, happen as the public, the House of Representatives and the media were quick to reject such proposals, fearing that these types of powers would eventually be used, or rather abused, by those in power.

Even the decision by the President last month to bring the Indonesian Military (TNI) into the campaign against terror has been received with skepticism and warnings of the return to the militaristic years of Soeharto, with all the consequences that would entail.

Following the President's decision, the TNI has revived the territorial function of its non-commissioned officers at village level, who, during the Soeharto years, were used effectively for the early detection of any antigovernment sentiments. We only have TNI chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto's word that this function will not be abused.

At the end of the day, it is the National Police, more than any other institution, that should lead the war on terror in this country.

Detachment 88's achievement in ending Azahari's reign of terror could not have been timelier, coming just as the nation was losing confidence in the police and we were about to resign ourselves to living with a constant terrorist threat every day.

Now more than ever, there is no room complacency.

Noordin is still at large, and he, and whoever else he has recruited, can still do harm and could even run amock.

After Azahari's death, the police, particularly Detachment 88, must work even harder to catch Noordin and destroy whatever is left of his terrorist network.