Indonesia and fight against terrorism: Successful use of the Egyptian experience

Ayat Ezz

At the end of last July, the Indonesian Ministry of the Interior announced the arrest of one of the terrorist elements belonging to the Daesh organization and announced it had thwarted many terrorist operations that were intended by some extremist elements related to the terrorist pro-Daesh group Abu Sayyaf in the southern Philippines as well as the dismantling of a terrorist cell in the country, which again opens up the Indonesian government’s ability to fight terrorism.

The Indonesian government has begun to take serious steps in the fight against terrorism since 2002, the year in which the famous Bali bombings killed 202 people and wounded 209, since the first anti-terrorism law was issued, in the country.

In 2003, 12 people were killed in the Marriott hotel bombing in Jakarta in September 2004, killing 9 people, and in October 2005, 23 people were killed in a series of attacks, according to a report by the BBC.

In July 2009, seven people were killed and scores wounded in two suicide attacks targeting Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta.

The bloody attacks in Indonesia by jihadist groups linked to the Abu Sayyaf group in the Philippines have continued for many years, especially with the emergence of a terrorist organization in 2014, until the Jakarta bombings of 2016, which claimed the lives of hundreds of people. The Anti-Terrorism Law No. 15 of 2003 was amended and applied, and the state increased the criminal penalty for anyone accused of any terrorist act.

At that time, terrorism was officially defined in the law. The definition of terrorism was as follows: “It is an act of violence or threat of violence that generates a climate of intimidation or fear on a large scale, causing large numbers of casualties or causing destruction in buildings and places of interest.”

The most prominent amendments to the penalties in the Terrorism Act, ranging from three years to life imprisonment, may lead to execution.

It is a crime to plan, organize and carry out any act of terrorism in the country, recruit, collect and send persons to participate in military training for terrorist purposes, or incite with a letter of whatever form to carry out terrorist acts.

Security and military combat

The Indonesian police have developed their anti-terrorist security performance and, among their security efforts, it has conducted live counterterrorism training at Binoa port in Denpasar, Bali, continuously in more than one city.

On the same level, the Indonesian military launched several military operations in the north and west of the country and on the border areas to besiege dormant cells belonging to the Daesh organization, leaving the task of securing cities to the police.

The Indonesian Government has also rehabilitated some of the extremists involved in violence or their loved ones, perhaps most notably, the establishment of a shelter for the rehabilitation of extremist children whose parents were killed during terrorist operations.

Among the ways the Indonesian government has used to combat terrorism are organizing meetings between convicted gunmen and survivors of terrorist attacks in the hope that it will combat extremism and promote reconciliation. Some 120 terrorist elements have already offered apologies to victims and survivors of sporadic attacks, including the bombing of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in 2004, according to the director of the anti-terrorism agency in Indonesia.

In mid-2018, the Indonesian government, in cooperation with the Imams, began to hold several interviews with extremist prisoners. It was the start of the al-Daesh members, who fell under the security grip, and indeed after many meetings, many of them announced their repentance.

Take advantage of the Egyptian experience

Hisham al-Najjar, an expert on Islamic groups, said that the Indonesian government had benefited from the Egyptian experience in fighting terrorism, rehabilitating extremists and had tried to apply the experience of dialogue with militants.

Najjar said in a statement to the Reference that he was one of those hosted by the Indonesian government for this purpose, pointing out that the experience has succeeded significantly, and gave important results within the Indonesian religious movement, which was following the approach of the Egyptian Islamic Group, and influenced by symbols such as Omar Abdel Rahman and others.

The researcher, who specializes in the Islamic movements, said that Indonesia faces great challenges in general, targeting the organization of the community and the state there, as well as the penetration of political Islam groups the party and electoral scene, which emerged significantly in the recent elections as a result of the alliances of some forces and the great political symbols with them.