A New Generation of Terrorists Graduates in Indonesia’s Radical Heartland City of Solo, in central Java, has bred a number of violent Islamists By I Made Sentana and Tom Wright
http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-new-generation-of-terrorists-graduates-in-indonesias-radical-heartland-1453040622
SOLO, Indonesia—This city in central Java is ground zero in Indonesia’s fight against extremism.
One man—a native of this community of half a million people—financed and encouraged the terrorists who carried out the gun and bomb attacks against the capital, Jakarta, on Jan. 14. It wasn’t the first time Solo had incubated violent radicals.
Police said Bahrun Naim, an Islamic State adherent now based in Syria, sent money to the Jakarta attackers. Radicals from Solo, also known as Surakarta, were prominent in a wave of attacks against Western targets at the turn of the century, including the bombings on the resort island of Bali in 2002 that killed 202 people, mostly tourists.
Mr. Naim became radicalized while attending an Islamic school in Solo, local police and a person who knew him said. Over the past decade, Indonesian police have arrested or killed scores of local terrorists from a generation inspired by and linked to al Qaeda. Some had been to Afghanistan pre-9/11; many had studied in Solo. Improved policing eviscerated the leadership until only scattered cells capable of little more than drive-by shootings remained, experts said. Until last week there had been no major attack on Jakarta since 2009.
But the emergence of a new cohort of militants impressed as youngsters by the previous heyday of terror here demonstrates the deep roots of radicalization.
ENLARGE “Why are most of the terrorist attacks affiliated with Solo?’’ local police chief Ahmad Luthfi said in an interview. Because “the source is here.”
Mr. Naim was born in 1983 to a middle-class family. His father worked in the agricultural-affairs division of the local government and his mother was a homemaker.
While studying in the early 2000s at SMA Al Islam 1, a private Islamic school in Solo, Mr. Naim attended evening prayer sessions at a mosque on the school grounds that were frequented by militants, according to Solo police and a person who knew Mr. Naim and was present. Some of the militants had been to Afghanistan. They were Mr. Naim’s heroes.
Ahsanudin, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name, is a teacher at SMA Al Islam 1 and said the school taught a regular Indonesian curriculum and had no authority over the mosque, which was run by the community.
Among the mosque’s attendees was Abu Bakar Bashir, a cleric who is now serving 15 years in prison for terrorism-related offenses, said the person who knew Mr. Naim. Mr. Bashir founded a different religious school outside Solo that educated many militants and was the spiritual head of Jemaah Islamiyah, the al Qaeda-linked group that carried out the attacks in the early 2000s.
Most Muslims in Indonesia follow a moderate brand of Islam. Yet a few tightly knit centers of militancy hew to a more-austere, uncompromising Saudi-inspired Islam, creating fertile ground for terrorist recruiters.
Solo, 360 miles southeast of Jakarta, used to have a vibrant textile industry but global competition has led to job cuts. Wage growth has been anemic and many youth are unemployed or eke out a living trading at the Dutch-era covered market.
Anies Baswedan, Indonesia’s education minister, says this growing economic malaise is a factor fueling extremism. He notes that the number of people involved in militancy is small, though “the sense is that this is coming from the same circles” as earlier attacks.
Some argue that the continuing existence of networks rooted in known locations points to a need for stronger counterterrorism laws. Indonesia’s national police chief complained last week that police can only arrest suspected militants when they commit a crime, such as buying explosives.
Penal sentences are often reduced by courts, which puts militants back on the street. Two of the four attackers who died in Jakarta on Thursday had previously been in jail, police said.
Indonesia’s government, headed by President Joko Widodo, has been reluctant to more closely regulate Islamic education for fear of creating a backlash. As mayor of Solo between 2005 and 2012 Mr. Widodo organized public interfaith dialogues to damp tensions between Muslims and minority communities of Christians. Legally constituted conservative Islamic groups stage rallies to protest church construction, prostitution, gambling and alcohol. In recent times, they have flown Islamic State’s flag.
Mr. Widodo’s efforts reduced frictions between Muslims and Christians but failed to deal with violent Islamic militant groups, which are illegal and operate in the shadows, said Bambang Setiaji, head of a university in Solo run by Muhammadiyah, a moderate Indonesian Islamic movement.
Mr. Naim studied computer sciences at a local college before working in an Internet cafe. He later joined a militant group formed by Mr. Bashir, the preacher, before being jailed in 2011 for hiding ammunition at his house, police said. He was released two years later after serving his sentence. Last year he left for Syria, taking with him an Indonesian woman believed to be his third wife, police said.
He joined about 300 Indonesians that police say are in Iraq and Syria. His proximity to Islamic State has increased his standing at home. Police believe that he is making a bid to establish himself as a leader of those in the archipelago who pledge fealty to Islamic State.
Others from the SMA Al Islam school in Solo helped to plan the Jakarta attacks, police said. They include Arif Hidayatullah, who was arrested in a raid near Jakarta in December after police intercepted communications between him and Mr. Naim over planned money transfers, according to police.
Police said the mosque on the grounds of the SMA Al Islam school, whose alumni include politicians, is no longer a breeding ground for militancy but acknowledge they had no idea at the time it was being used for radical indoctrination and point to the difficulty of stopping such activities.
Mr. Baswedan, the education minister, believes most religious schools are not a problem. “It’s individuals,” he said.
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