A suicide attack using a bomb in front of Cathedral Church Makassar on Sunday (28/3) attracted a lot of attention. This condition was very surprising for many parties due to the bomb incidents infrequently happening in recent times. Dr. Muhammad Najib Azca, as the Head of UGM PSKP said that the latest bomb incident was in Sarinah and Surabaya. The bomb incident in Cathedral Church Makassar demonstrated that extremism and terrorism in Indonesia still exist.
“Even though the cases have reduced significantly compared to the cases in the 2000s. Started in 2002, Bali Bombing. It had a tremendous destructive effect, with a lot of victims. Next, bombing in 2005, 2006, and 2007 remade by the affiliated similar terrorist group by Islamiyah congregation,” he said in UGM Campus on Monday (29/3).
Najib revealed that the government efforts have been recently effective to attenuate these terrorist groups. However, started in 2010, terrorism has released a new affiliation group. The latest was from Ansharut Dauloh and their other designated terrorist groups. Several times, they attempted to bomb-attack, but it had been less successful compared to the old cases back then, which resulted in many victims, such as in the Bali bombing. In Sarinah and Surabaya, the victims were mostly bomb-executants instead of the community.
“This means the death risk is low, indeed. Still, it is tremendously threatening. In recent times, the victims were mostly the bomb executants themselves,” he explained.
Besides, he also added that the old-designated terrorism was different from the present. The strategy was clearly organized in the old-designated terrorism. It involved a lot of parties, but the executants were only one or two people only. In comparison to today, the executants were mostly an individual-terrorist-attack. They were not affiliated with the other terrorist-organizations. Hence, it was increasingly difficult to detect.
“After this incident, social media was busy discussing this topic, right? It fears the community. In contrast, in Afghanistan, Syria, the victims are approximately around 200 or more. In our country, recently, there are no tremendous cases. The community victims were less than ten because they were mostly from the executants itself,” said the Sociology Department, Faculty of Politic and Social Sciences.
Although it is a small group, they are still actively recruiting behind closed doors. The latest data from BNPT or Densus, there are approximately 6 thousand followers of the Islamiyah congregation. There is only about 10 percent of people active in this terrorist movement. The rest of them are only adherents. On the other hand, JAD had more difficulties in detecting. Najib also mentioned that this terrorist recruitment was mostly active through social media. The latest research found that mostly they would recruit Indonesian female workers who work abroad. Terrorists approached people with unfamiliar environments to make them easier to persuade them to join. Indonesia female workers frequently spend their time on social media. They can access a lot of information, one of which is radicalism. They also sometimes join the Muslim forum.
“Terrorist sometimes approaches Indonesian female workers through Muslim forum in telegram with a smaller security system than WhatsApp. They use personal approach, step by step, but it results in tremendous effect,” he said/
For the funding itself, most of the bombers come from the middle economy class. They have quite a good income. For instance, the bomber from Surabaya was from the middle class. He was a businessman. He had money, luxury houses in the real estate complex. It can be concluded that terrorists are not always from an impoverished families. More than that, they are presumably from educated and well-off families.
“It is not necessary to be greatly funded or financed abroad. Terrorists can suffice it through local funding. The key is on ideology. How it affects their principal, how they influence people about radicalism and extreme ideology. Similar to the Surabaya bombing, they were influenced by extremists. Even he asked their children to join,” he said.
Najib revealed that the government had attempted so many efforts against extremism and terrorist attacks from 2000 up to the present. Their attempts have made quite significant results to reduce its destructive effects. Najib suggested that for now, the government can start to detect terrorist groups more frequently. The government can collaborate with the community in order to detect these groups. However, the government and its intelligence agencies have a limited number of human resources.
“We all should be participative and increase our awareness about anti-terrorism. It requires support from many parties to be proactive against this dangerous thing; we should be preventive and persuasive to report any threat to the state agencies,” he said.
Author: Agung Nugroho