IN FOCUS: Jemaah Islamiyah’s vow to disband not the end of terror attack threats, radicalisation in Southeast Asia

Part of the reason why Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) has survived for more than three decades despite hundreds of arrests and raids is the fact that the group consists of loosely-linked cells, says analysts and former members of the group.

“Even an amir only knows division chief levels. He does not know who the people working inside these divisions are and he is not allowed to know,” former JI secretary Hadi Masykur told CNA, referring to the group’s leader by its Arabic term, which literally means “commander”.

These divisions are further divided into smaller teams and communications between them are kept to a minimum.

The system ensures that if one member is arrested, only his immediate teammates will be compromised instead of the whole network.

Another safeguard is that once a member is arrested, he is automatically ostracised from the rest of the organisation until that person can prove that he has not cooperated with the police and is still committed to the JI’s cause.

“It happened to me when the police were zeroing in on me. I refused to leave my mother and go into hiding,” the 46-year-old said of the days before he was arrested in 2019. “I was immediately cut off from JI.”

The rules, Hadi said, apply to everyone inside the organisation regardless of their ranks and seniority, including the amirs.

Mr Adhe Bhakti of PAKAR said this system is the reason why the Jun 30 decision does not carry any weight in the eyes of some JI members.

“They can easily say ‘didn’t we agree that those who were arrested should be treated as outsiders and can no longer speak on our behalf?’,” the terrorism expert said.

The only person whose words carry weight inside JI is the organisation’s amir, Hadi said. The former JI secretary had reasons to believe that the group might be leaderless after Para Wijayanto’s arrest in 2019 and that of his interim replacement Arif in 2020.

“Arif was the last active senior figure inside JI … the last person who knows the ins and outs of JI,” Hadi, who was released in Sep 2022 after serving a three-and-a-half year prison sentence for his role in JI, said. “After Arif was arrested, all that was left were the juniors.”

This puts the 6,000 active members of JI in a peculiar position, said Dr Noor Huda Ismail, a visiting fellow at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS).

On one hand, the various cells inside JI are free to do whatever they want in the absence of a clear leader. On the other hand, there is no one senior enough who is still committed to JI’s cause and can provide them with guidance.

“Whenever certain cells were about to launch a terror attack, senior members of the organisation are consulted. You can say they were shopping for fatwas (edicts) from the elders so they can have an ease of mind that what they were doing was righteous in the eyes of religion and not just ordinary acts of crime,” Dr Huda told CNA.

Police believed that perpetrators of the 2002 Bali Bombings consulted JI co-founder and then amir, Abu Bakar Baasyir before launching the deadly attacks. Baasyir was in 2005 found guilty of conspiracy over the 2002 bombings by the lower court but his conviction was overturned on appeal.

Baasyir, 85, was eventually convicted of aiding a 2010 paramilitary training camp in Sumatra. His 15-year prison sentence was reduced on humanitarian grounds after suffering several illnesses related to his old age. He was released in 2021 and has since decided to cooperate with the government.

Dr Huda of RSIS believes the Jun 30 declaration by the 16 senior members of JI was a positive step in reducing the number of people who can provide blessings to such terror attacks in the future.

He added: “The dissolution of JI is good news, a good start, but it’s too early for us to close the JI chapter. Hopefully not, but I think we cannot rule out the possibility of the emergence of splinter groups which may be more violent than JI