News and Analysis: Indonesia – Police Arrest Two Key Terrorist Leaders – Abu Dujana and Zarkasih (17 June 2007)

Over the last week, Indonesian police arrested two key leaders of the terrorist group, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI). Abu Dujana, reportedly and self-confessed, military commander of JI, was arrested last weekend, and his detention was swiftly followed by the apprehension of Zarkasih, who is now believed to have assumed the overall leadership of the militant organization in 2005 after the arrests of the Abu Bakar Bashir and Abu Rusdan, both who headed up JI in succession until taken into custody. (Note – Abu Bakar Bashir served his time and was released last year.) In addition to Dujana and Zarkasih, six other militants were arrested. The detentions of Abu Dujana and Zarkasih are thought to be directly linked to intelligence acquired by police in the aftermath of a raid on a JI safe house in March of this year. During that raid, seven suspected JI members were arrested and a significant cache of weapons and explosives was discovered that included both small arms and a large quantity of bomb making material. The U.S. and Australian funded Indonesian police unit, Detachment 88 (founded in 2003 and named in honor of the 88 Australians killed in the 2002 Bali bombings) is thought to have played an instrumental role in above mentioned operations.  It is unclear what part, if any, either Dujana or Zarkasih had with the planning and/or execution of the 2003 Marriott Hotel and 2004 Australian embassy bombings. Police are saying that Abu Dujana is definitely linked, but according an Associated Press article (15 June), Sidney Jones, a leading expert on the JI, was quoted as saying that while Zarkasih and Dujana likely promoted religious unrest on Sulawesi Island in recent years, she didn’t think they played an active role in the bombing campaign. She did go on to state that the arrests were “hugely significant.”

(Comment – Both Abu Dujana and Zarkasih are considered to be part of JI’s old guard – both of  whom reportedly traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and in the case of Abu Dujana, apparently met with Osama bin Laden. It should be noted that Abu Dujana is also a fluent Arabic speaker, which evidently helped facilitate his connections to al-Qaeda members. The arrest of these two individuals represents a considerable blow to JI -- not just the fact that it removes them from doing further harm, but also, the intelligence that will be gained through their interrogations will undoubtedly assist Indonesian security forces in achieving a better understanding of how JI has evolved over the years, and secondly, will contribute in the development of follow-on operations. One key wild card remaining is Malaysian national Noordin Top, a close associate of Azahari bin Husin (killed by police in 2005) and who is believed to be JI’s most accomplished bomb maker. He remains at large and is believed to be still residing in Indonesia. It is thought that Noordin Top leads a more radical and possibly breakaway faction of JI that remains committed to large-scale bombings of civilian soft targets.  The role of Detachment 88 in earlier operations against JI militants in Poso on the island of Sulawesi and in these latest arrests is encouraging and demonstrates a steadily increasingly competent and effective indigenous counter-terrorism capability.  Combined with the recent successful Armed Forces of the Philippines counter-terrorist operations in the Southern Philippine islands against the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) over the last nine months, the Indonesian successes in detaining key high value JI militants will have a positive impact, not just in Indonesia but across the region as a whole as Southeast Asia continues to make gains against a seemingly smaller and smaller number, yet nonetheless, determined militant, violence prone, radial Islamists. The only place where the tide appears to have not yet tilted favorably in the last year is Southern Thailand, which continues to spiral ever downward in a cycle of increasing violence.  [slr]