‘Lone wolf’ or JI?: Jemaah Islamiyah confusion after assault on Malaysia | Political information

International Courant

Medan, Indonesia – Malaysia has been the goal of a uncommon lethal assault after a person armed with a machete smashed right into a police station within the southern state of Johor, killing two cops and wounding a 3rd.

Initially, Malaysian police stated they suspected Friday’s incident was linked to the hardline Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and was doubtless an try and steal weapons. Chatting with media after the assault within the city of Ulu Tiram, Inspector Basic of Police Razarudin Husain stated police raided the suspect’s home and found “JI-related paraphernalia”.

5 members of his household had been arrested, together with the suspect’s 62-year-old father, who police stated was a “identified JI member.” Two different individuals, who reported the assault on the police station within the early hours of Friday morning, had been additionally arrested.

However on Saturday, Malaysian Residence Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail appeared to backtrack on the JI connection, describing the attacker as a “lone wolf” who was “pushed by sure motivations based mostly on his personal understanding as a result of he hardly ever interacted with others.”

Former members of JI in Indonesia advised Al Jazeera that an assault by the group on Malaysian territory appeared unlikely.

Ali Imron advised Al Jazeera from jail within the Indonesian capital Jakarta, the place he’s serving a life sentence for his position within the 2002 Bali bombing that killed greater than 200 individuals, that JI’s profile in Malaysia was not appeared to suit the assault on the police station. .

“There have by no means been any JI members in Malaysia who agreed to commit this sort of violent act,” he stated. “Earlier than the Bali bombing, there have been assaults in Malaysia, however these weren’t dedicated by JI however by Kumpulan Mujahedin Malaysia (KMM).”

KMM, a hardline affiliated with JI, carried out small-scale assaults in Malaysia within the early 2000s.

Rueben Dass, a senior analyst on the S Rajaratnam Faculty of Worldwide Research in Singapore, famous that JI had by no means carried out assaults in Malaysia earlier than.

“Malaysia has all the time been thought to be an financial area for JI, and never as a goal of assaults,” he advised Al Jazeera. “The Malaysian authorities had been all the time vigilant and conscious, particularly after the KMM turned energetic. They’ve been alert and carried out a wave of arrests of JI members within the early 2000s.”

Since then, he stated, JI had saved a low profile.

“It is a bit stunning to see them seem once more,” he added.

Indonesia, which noticed a wave of JI assaults within the late Nineties and early 2000s – together with assaults on church buildings on Christmas Eve 2000, the Bali bombings and the assault on the JW Marriott Resort in Jakarta in 2003 – has additionally been largely profitable in suppress it.

In 2003, with funding and coaching from the USA and Australia, it established the Counterterrorism Particular Detachment 88 (Densus 88), and later a Nationwide Counterterrorism Company (BNPT).

In accordance with the Institute for Coverage Evaluation of Battle, a Jakarta-based assume tank, Indonesian authorities have additionally pioneered a collection of deradicalization packages utilizing former members of hardline teams, together with JI, with a recidivism fee of round 11 %.

Historical past of JI

JI was based in 1993 by Indonesian Muslim scholar Abu Bakar Bashir and Abdullah Sungkar, with a mission to ascertain an Islamic Caliphate throughout Southeast Asia.

The group has traditionally been linked to al-Qaeda, from which it reportedly acquired funding and coaching within the Nineties and early 2000s. It has had members in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia and the Philippines.

JI was formally banned in Indonesia in 2007, resulting in the group’s dissolution. Some members targeted on dakwah or conversion, whereas others continued to plan violent assaults. Arrests have continued throughout the area, with members accused of stockpiling weapons and bomb-making tools.

In accordance with open supply knowledge, of the 610 individuals arrested in Indonesia between 2021 and 2023, 42 % had been JI and 39 % had been from different hardline teams – together with Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) and different pro-Islamic State teams.

Nearly all of senior JI figures have been executed, shot lifeless in police raids or imprisoned.

The 2002 Bali assault that killed greater than 200 individuals shocked Southeast Asia (File: AP)

Each Bashir and Sungkar lived in Malaysia within the Eighties and Nineties, alongside distinguished members corresponding to Indonesian Encep Nurjaman (alias Hambali) and Malaysians Noordin Mohammed Prime and Azahari Husin. Ali Ghufron (alias Mukhlas), Amrozi bin Nurhasyim and Imam Samudra, the masterminds of the Bali bombing, additionally hung out in Malaysia.

Hambali was arrested in Thailand in 2003 and is at the moment awaiting trial at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, whereas Samudra, Amrozi and Mukhlas had been executed in 2008. The 2 Malaysians had been shot in separate police raids in Indonesia in 2005 and 2009.

Earlier than his loss of life, Noordin ran the Luqmanul Hakiem Islamic boarding faculty in Malaysia, based by Bashir and Sungkar and positioned in Ulu Tiram, near the house of the suspect in Friday’s assault.

Malaysia closed the college in 2002 over suspicions that it was getting used to recruit individuals for JI.

Fashion of assault

Whereas the profile of the suspect’s father and proximity to Luqmanul Hakiem could have prompt a JI connection, Imron cautioned in opposition to such an evaluation.

“If the son adopted his father, there is no such thing as a method he would have dedicated this act, so there’s a good likelihood that he was impressed by ISIS (ISIL),” Imron stated, suggesting that Malaysian authorities “got here to that conclusion had come. ”

Umar Patek, who was launched from jail in 2022 after serving 11 years of a 20-year sentence for mixing among the chemical substances used within the Bali bombing, advised Al Jazeera he “did not consider” that the attacker was a member of JI. and agreed that the assault appeared to have the traits of one other group.

“I’ve severe doubts,” he stated. “I do not perceive it, particularly not finishing up a violent assault. It’s unimaginable for my part that it was JI, however it’s attainable that it was ISIS.”

The fashion of the assault has elevated skepticism, because the assaults on a police station and Muslim cops are inconsistent with JI’s assaults in Indonesia. There, ISIL-inspired hardline teams, together with JAD, have attacked police stations, seeing them as consultant of the state.

Indonesia and Malaysia cracked down on the group after a wave of lethal assaults within the early 2000s (File: Suparta/AFP)

Judith Jacob, the pinnacle of Asia for danger evaluation and intelligence agency Torchlight, advised Al Jazeera that probably the most uncommon facet of Friday’s assault was its location.

“Whereas Malaysian militants have been key figures in JI and Philippine teams, there’s little proof of refined plots particularly focusing on Malaysia lately,” she stated.

Though Malaysia and Indonesia have by no means seen the degrees of violence seen within the early 2000s, assaults haven’t but been fully eradicated – and a sample of extra opportunistic, low-level violence has emerged.

“The assault in Malaysia stays squarely inside the wheelhouse of regional Islamic militant teams – that’s, it’s a comparatively unsophisticated assault,” Jacob stated.

“Indonesian teams particularly have been largely unable to hold out the large-scale assaults or coordinate the bombings that characterised JI in its heyday within the 2000s. Militant teams within the Philippines are extra succesful, however they too have failed to hold out superior bombing raids past the southern islands.”

‘Lone wolf’ or JI?: Jemaah Islamiyah confusion after assault on Malaysia | Political information

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