Old network masterminds terrorist attacks on Bali?

Old network masterminds terrorist attacks on Bali?

Hermawan Sulistyo, Jakarta

Entering the months of September and October, the Bali Police
had in fact tightened security measures to prevent terrorism.

Bali Police chief Made Mangku Pastika took the measures in
anticipation of possible terrorist acts, particularly bombing.
The policy itself was based on the existing pattern of previous
bombings, including targets and timing.

The bombs, however, exploded anyway. The police could be
accused of a security failure but it is not easy to prevent such
an attack. It is near impossible to monitor the thousands of
people with backpacks in public spaces to find which one is
carrying a bomb. Though, it cannot be denied that extreme caution
is never kept up for more than a month after an attack has
occurred.

Speculation has been rife in the aftermath of the Oct. 1
attack concerning the perpetrators and their motives.

One version says the bomb was an instrument of terror against
the Helsinki peace agreement on Aceh. This is unlikely as, so
far, retaliation related to the Aceh cause has been confined to
Jakarta and Bandung.

The Free Aceh Movement (GAM) has accepted the terms of the
peace deal. Similarly, there is no strong argument for some
former hard-line officers who are against the Helsinki agreement
to launch such an attack.

The second theory is that the bombings were orchestrated to
shift the focus away from the recent oil price increases.
But any effort to shift attention away from one issue by creating
a potentially disastrous situation for the country is illogical.
The government would not jeopardize its image as a nation capable
of fighting terrorism.

On the contrary, there is another theory that the bombs were
set off to protest the fuel price increases. This scenario is
also far from reality. People were informed of the increases well
in advance.

The fact is these were suicide bombers and three executors of
the bombings are dead. There is only one group linked to Jamaah
Islamiyah that has the capacity for such an attack.
This is the same network that bombed the JW Marriot hotel and the
front of the Australian Embassy. Some analysts and former
terrorists speculate that the perpetrators are new recruits led
by old players.

At least 250 people in the region have the skills to make a
bomb; they gained their skills from training in the Abu Sayyaff
camp in the Southern Philippines and/or the battlefield in
Afghanistan. If everybody in this group functions as a leader
then he needs no less than three to four trained assistants,
meaning the group totals more than 1,000 recruits. It is
definitely not an easy task to control more than one thousand
trained potential terrorists.

The network usually consists of three categories of activists:

The first group consists of religious hard-liners. Although
they are devout and activists for their cause they do not
practice violence.

The second group consists of political hard-liners. Although
stemming from religious devotion, they are more active in
politics, both formal politics through political parties and
informal politics through various pressure groups.

The third consists of military hard-liners. They are, of
course, religious hard-liners but they believe that violent
actions -- including terrorism -- is the best and most effective
way to raise their cause. This third group is clandestine.

The problem with the three groups is that they know each other
but are unaware of individual group activities. The majority, if
not all, activists from religious and political wings do not know
that some of their members are militarily active. That explains
why many activists try to protect colleagues who are involved in
a bombing because they do not believe that their friends were
really involved in the bombing.

Any analysis of an attack like the Oct. 1 bombings, is only
speculative without forensic proof. If the old network is the
perpetrator, then why were the bombings not on the same scale as
those of 2002? That is another question to be addressed in
another area of the investigation.

The writer is a history student specializing in political
killings, terrorism and violence. Editor of the Police's White
Book on the 2002 Bali Bombings and CEO of Bukafe (bookstore &
cafi), he may be reached at kikiek@centrin.net.id.