Dangerous Amateur Terrorists

KOMPAS/DANU KUSWORO

Noor Huda Ismail

The National Police’s counterterrorism squad, Densus 88, deserves high appreciation for thwarting a series of connected terrorist acts in Sibolga, Lampung, North Sumatra, and in Bekasi, in support of the Islamic State group (IS).

The terror plans were revealed after the capture of the Sibolga bomb network led by Husein alias Abu Hamzah on March 19, 2019. This shows that the IS continues to pose a terrorist threat despite its loss of control of a region it once held in Syria and Iraq.

The question is: Who are the supporters of the IS in Indonesia? Is their commitment so strong that they will keep moving? As a nation, what steps do we need to take to address this phenomenon?

In the writer’s opinion, the IS supporters in Indonesia are "amateur terrorists". Even though they are amateurs, they are still dangerous. There are two main reasons for this. First, when compared to the perpetrators of terror acts of the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) network affiliated to Al Qaeda, it is clear that the military capabilities of this group are very minimal or even nonexistent. Most of the early generation of terrorists, especially in the era of Noordin M Top and Dr. Azhari Husein, had attended military training in Afghanistan in the 1980s or in the southern Philippines in the 2000s.

At least they had been involved in communal conflicts after reforms in Ambon (Maluku) or Poso (Central Sulawesi). Therefore, these old terrorists were more skillful and their attacks were more deadly. In the new groups, almost no-one has ever attended military training at the global, regional or even local level. Even if they do military training, the exercises are carried out inside Indonesia, and the weapons used for training are very simple, such as soft guns or air guns.

The lack of weapons explains why an "amateur terrorist" in Lamongan, East Java, used slingshots to attack a police station. Even though they are amateurs, they pose a danger to the authorities because of their blind determination, especially if they are brought together in one place. For example, a former hawker in Palembang, South Sumatera, Wawan Kurniawan, instantly became a "scholar" in a group and did live-streaming on social media during riots at the Mobile Brigade headquarters. In that action, this amateur terrorist viciously killed officers.

Second, because they used to be "mujahid" -- a term for those within this group who have carried out jihad or fought in areas of conflict – older-generation terrorists enjoy higher social status than ordinary members who have never engaged in jihad.

They live in a social network that is difficult for the authorities to infiltrate. Because of the strength of this old terrorist social network, Noordin M Top, who at the time was a first-class fugitive being hunted by the police, still found time to marry more than once and had offspring. This means, even though formally JI rejected Noordin M Top\'s actions in organizational meetings, not a few of the JI social networks were ready to facilitate the old group’s terrorist acts.

In the new group, social networks are developed through online and offline methods. Online, they use almost all social media platforms, especially Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram. Perhaps because they are tied up in an "imagined solidarity" among the IS supporters, even though they have never had a face-to-face meeting, they feel as if they are brothers and trust each other.

The most recent example of this pattern was the formation of the network of Abu Hamzah, 33, in Sibolga. Before the arrest of Rinta Sugianto alias Putra in Lampung, the security forces failed to detect the figure of Abu Hamzah. In fact, he had been regularly shopping for explosives online and intensively studying IS propaganda online since early 2016 with his wife, Marnita Sari Boru Hutauruk alias Solimah. Usually, after a social network is formed online, its members will conduct offline verification by meeting in an agreed place. Usually, the online recruitment works well if there is an offline relationship in advance. So, there is a connection between the online and offline methods.

This could clearly be seen in the case of the formation of a terror network in Batam led by Gigih Rahmat Dewa and Bahrun Naim (BN) in Syria. According to Gigih, he had known Bahrun Naim when he was involved in spiritual activities in a secondary school in Solo, Central Java. "There was no special talk between me and the BN at the time. BN was only one of the speakers in the discussion," Gigih said in an interview with the writer.

The "ordinary" offline relations turned out to be a trigger for the Gigih’s involvement in the IS networks in Indonesia. When in Batam, Gigih wanted to be a good husband and father. Therefore, he began to study religion. Due to his busy schedule as an employee at a Japanese company in Batam and spending weekends with the family, Gigih chose to study religion online.

He did not study Islam in the crowded religious studies at the Batam mosques. For him, studying religion online was the fastest and easiest way. Ironically, in the online world, radical groups are far more creative in presenting information about Islam.

With the push of an algorithmic system, Gigih\'s desire to become a good father by learning religion online slowly turned into a boomerang for him. "This is the green-haired Gigih, huh?" asked Bahrun Naim in a Facebook conversation. Gigih was curious about how this foreign avatar on Facebook knew he used to paint his hair green. Indeed, Gigih had been an atheist and dyed his hair green before participating in religious studies in secondary school. Starting with a lightheaded conversation evoking memories of Gigih of attending secondary school in Solo, Bahrun Naim recruited Gigih as an IS supporter.

Also through Facebook, Gigih built all Katibah Gonggong Rebus (KGR) networks in Batam.

Online radicalization

The effect of the online radicalization on amateur terrorists, according to the writer, comes down to two factors.

The first is the existence of information technology, which is characterized by the speed of internet access, the popularity of social media and the affordability of smartphones. In the old terrorist era, the spread of radicalism only focused on certain regions, especially conflict areas, such as Afghanistan, the southern Philippines, Poso and Ambon. It also took years for someone to become a terrorist. However, these amateur terrorists live in an anarchistic world of information, where there are hardly any rules.

The second factor is the poor religious knowledge of the IS supporters. For example, they are very fond of trimming QS Al Baqarah 256, which only focused on the importance of being "hostile to the tagut (enemies of Islam)". Their doctrine is deadly: "Your faith is not perfect before you can deny the tagut, where the highest form of its denial is fighting it."

A doctrine like this, if given to criminals who have just converted and are studying Islam, or those who have problems in their families or their finances or suffer from depression, can be immediately followed. Moreover, for them, "death when fighting against the tagut is the noblest death." Finally, terrorism is a way of perfecting religion. Seeing this paradigm shift, what should we do as a nation?

First, ideology is not the main driver of these amateur terrorists. However, it seems that these amateur terrorists have at least a shallow understanding of religion. They are people who study Islam. They also take it not from a clear source of its scientific sanad (family tree). Websites, YouTube and social media like Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram become their point of reference about Islam. As a result, they live in an echo-chamber that prevents them from an alternative way of looking at religion.

Therefore, it is very important for us not only to study religion from one source and be a fanatical follower of just one religious teacher.

Second, these amateur terrorists are dangerous because they are always busy looking for enemies. Troubled young people, our citizens who are abroad and in search of religious knowledge, as well as those who want to repent through religious ways, ironically, often become targets of recruitment by this group. For amateur terrorists, they are people who are looking for something, which is missing in their lives. Therefore, parents must make sure their children understand the internet intelligently (digital literacy). At the same time, social media must be filled with positive information. Moderate Muslims must move if they do not want to see Indonesia continue to become a playing ground for these amateur terrorists.

Finally, creators of religious content on the internet must be encouraged by the state to advise their readers to consult with qualified Islamic scholars in their surroundings, because Islamic knowledge should not be interpreted with the intellectual ability of new learners. By doing so, they can become followers of radicalism. When people who want to learn Islam are facilitated by the internet and search engine algorithm, and then find teachings, including those from the IS, but do not verify these teachings with competent teachers and tend to digest them on their own according to their own reasoning ability and psychological condition, this can give birth to people like Gigih in Batam or the perpetrator who launched the catapult attack in Lamongan.

Noor Huda Ismail, Visiting Fellow RSIS, NTU, Singapore