July 25, 2019 <Back to Index>
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Jemaah Islamiah (Arabic: الجماعة الإسلامية, al-Jamāʿat ul-Islāmíyatu, meaning "Islamic Congregation", frequently abbreviated JI), is a Southeast Asian militant Islamic organization dedicated to the establishment of a Daulah Islamiyah (regional Islamic caliphate) in Southeast Asia incorporating Indonesia, Malaysia, the southern Philippines, Singapore and Brunei. JI was added to the United Nations 1267 Committee's list of terrorist organizations linked to al-Qaeda or the Taliban on 25 October 2002 under UN Security Council Resolution 1267. JI has its roots in Darul Islam (DI, meaning "House of Islam"), a radical Islamist / anti - colonialist movement in Indonesia in the 1940s. The JI was formally founded on January 1, 1993, by JI leaders, Abu Bakar Bashir and Abdullah Sungkar while hiding in Malaysia from the persecution of the Suharto government. After the fall of the Suharto regime in 1998, both men returned to Indonesia where JI gained a terrorist edge when one of its founders, the late Abdullah Sungkar, established contact with Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. JI’s violent operations began during the communal conflicts in Maluku and Poso. It shifted its attention to targeting US and Western interests in Indonesia and the wider Southeast Asian region since the start of the US led war on terror. JI’s terror plans in Southeast Asia were exposed when its plot to set off several bombs in Singapore was foiled by the local authorities. Recruiting, training, indoctrination, financial and operational links between the JI and other militant groups, such as al-Qaeda, the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the Misuari Renegade / Breakaway Group (MRG / MBG) and the Philippine Rajah Sulaiman movement (RSM) have existed for many years, and continue to this day. Prior to the first Bali bombing, there was underestimation to the threat Jemaah Islamiah posed. Jemaah Islamiah is known to have killed hundreds of civilians in the first Bali car bombing on October 12, 2002. In the attack, suicide bombers killed 202 people and wounded many in two blasts. The first, smaller blast by a suicide bomber using a backpack, killed a small number of people in a nightclub and drove the survivors into the street, where the vast majority were killed by a massive fertilizer / fuel oil bomb concealed in a parked van. After this attack, the U.S. State Department designated Jemaah Islamiah as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Jemaah Islamiah is also strongly suspected of carrying out the 2003 JW Marriott hotel bombing in Kuningan, Jakarta, the 2004 Australian embassy bombing in Jakarta, the 2005 Bali terrorist bombing and the 2009 JW Marriott and Ritz - Carlton hotel bombings. The Bali and JW Marriott attacks showed that JI did not rule out attacking the same target more than once. The JI also has been directly and indirectly involved in dozens of bombings in the southern Philippines, usually in league with the ASG. However, most of Jemaah Islamiah prominent figures such as Hambali, Abu Dujana, Azahari Husin, Noordin Top
and Dulmatin have either been captured or killed, mostly by Indonesian
anti - terrorist squad, Detachment 88. While several of its former
leaders, including Malaysian jihadist and Afghanistan War veteran Nasir
Abbas,
have renounced violence and even assisted the Indonesian and Malaysian
governments in the war on terrorism. Nasir Abbas was Noordin Top's
former superior. The JI was established as a loose confederation of several Islamic groups. Sometime around 1969, three men, Abu Bakar Bashir, Abdullah Sungkar and Shahrul Nizam 'PD' began an operation to propagate the Darul Islam movement, a conservative strain of Islam. Bashir and Sungkar were both imprisoned by the New Order administration of Indonesian president Suharto as part of a crackdown on radical groups such as Komando Jihad, that were perceived to undermine the government's control over the Indonesian population. The two leaders spent several years in prison. After release, Bashir and his followers moved to Malaysia in 1982. They recruited people from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. The group officially named itself Jemaah Islamiah around that time period. Back in Southeast Asia, the members of JI distributed pamphlets. Bashir preached jihad but he would do very little violent action. This changed in the 1990s. Bashir met Riduan Isamuddin, a.k.a. Hambali, sometime in the early 1990s at a religious school that Bashir set up. Bashir became the spiritual leader of the organization while Hambali became the military leader. Unlike the Al-Mau'nah group, Jemaah Islamiah kept a low profile in Malaysia and their existence was publicized only after the 2002 Bali bombings. In 2003, Indonesian police confirmed 'the existence of Mantiqe IV "-the JI regional cell" which covers Irian Jaya and Australia." Indonesian police saya Muklas has identified Mantiqe IV's leader as Abdul Rahim - an Indonesian born Australian'. Indonesian investigators revealed the JI's establishment of an assassination squad in April 2007, which was established to target top leaders who oppose the group's objectives, as well as other officials, including police officers, government prosecutors and judges handling terrorism related cases. In April 2008, the South Jakarta District Court declared JI an illegal organization when sentencing former leader Zarkasih and military commander Abu Dujana to 15 years on terrorism charges. In 2010, Indonesian authorities cracked down on the Jemaah Islamiah
network in Aceh. Between February and May 2010, more than 60 militants
were captured. This Aceh network was established by Dulmatin sometime after 2007 when he returned to Indonesia.
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