Nation marred by terror group's bloody legacy

Published on Friday 17 July 2009 22:18

JEMAAH Islamiyah has a bloody history in Indonesia, with the group responsible for some of the deadliest attacks.

Despite hopes its authority had dissipated following a series of splits and deaths among its senior leaders, yesterday's attack confirmed that it still possesses the ability to carry out mass atrocities.

Only on Thursday, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute said that leadership tensions in the group, coupled with recent prison releases of its members, raised the possibility that splinter groups might now seek to re-energise the movement.

The organisation, which has ideological links with al-Qaeda, was responsible for the two bomb attacks on Balinese nightclubs in the autumn of 2002 which killed 202 people. It has also been linked with the 2003 attack on the JW Marriot hotel in Jakarta, and a suicide bombing at the Australian embassy the next year.

The organisation is understood to have been formed around two decades ago in Malaysia by a group of disaffected Indonesian extremists, and quickly spread across Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines.

By the mid-1990s, its political intentions gave way to militant tendencies, believed to have been nurtured by al-Qaeda operatives, who encouraged the organisation's followers that only a "holy war" could deliver their ambitions.

Its aim is to usher in an Islamic super-state, encompassing not only Indonesia, but also swathes of South-east Asia.

In recent years, it is believed the group has splintered, with some factions opposed to the use of violence.

The group's alleged figurehead, Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, was imprisoned on minor charges relating to the Bali bombings, but later acquitted, while Riduan Isamuddin, a key logistics figure, is currently in US custody at Guantanamo.

Hundreds of other suspected members have been arrested in recent times, and some senior members have been killed.

Many that remain at large, however, have found renewed zeal for terrorist activity.