Indonesia Must Hit Terrorism at Its Roots by Tackling Recruitment at Islamic Schools

August 09, 2009
Joe Cochrane

Indonesia Must Hit Terrorism at Its Roots by Tackling Recruitment at Islamic Schools
Analysis

Noordin M Top has certainly lived by the sword, so it would have been fitting if he had met his demise amid a hail of bullets and bomb explosions inside a farmhouse in Central Java over the weekend.

It seems certain that the alleged mastermind of the July 17 twin suicide bombings in South Jakarta — as well as other attacks in the capital and on Bali — is still at large. Aside from his fanatical, extremist interpretations of Islam and willingness to kill scores of civilians in pursuit of his goals, Noordin is considered even more dangerous for his ability to recruit pawns to carry out attacks, in particular young suicide bombers.

It was likely his followers would attempt to carry on his work in the event he was captured or killed.

“His legend would rise. It would be a great recruiting tool,” said Ken Conboy, author of “Inside Jemaah Islamiyah, Asia’s Most Dangerous Terrorist Network.”

Tracking down and rolling up Noordin’s network — and the man himself given that DNA tests are expected to come back negative — is the job of Detachment 88, the National Police counter-terrorism unit. But analysts say the central government must take a long-term view of the country’s terrorism problem and begin tackling it at its source.

Terrorism’s roots, they say, lie within the country’s Islamic boarding schools. According to Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group, about 50 pesantrens are believed linked to Jemaah Islamiyah, the regional terrorist network of which Noordin was once a key member.

“The schools are still important, less for what they teach than for the connections made there,” said Jones, a JI expert. “It’s not so much ‘massive’ recruiting that’s the problem, but more that I would place the santri [orthodox Muslims] at these schools near the top of vulnerable populations for recruitment. And it only takes a visit by one extremist to bring a couple more on board.”

Indonesia has as many as 45,000 Islamic boarding schools, Jones said, but only about 15,000 are registered with the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Analysts have criticized the ministry for not overseeing the schools’ curriculums, which could be blinds for private study sessions for handpicked students with extremist teachers.

Despite the difficulties the government would have intervening in Islamic schools, Nasaruddin Umar, the Religious Affairs Ministry’s director general for mass guidance on Islam, said expanded oversight was inevitable. “We have to control the curriculums of all the pesantrens. I have found many, many problems,” he said.