22 February 2016•Update: 22 February 2016
By Ainur Rohmah
TUBAN, Indonesia
Indonesian police announced Monday that a probe into 38 men arrested during “military-style” training in the mountains of Java island concluded that the exercises were aimed at disaster management rather than terrorism-related activities.
The members of a religious organization were arrested Saturday – after anti-terror police captured five other people suspected of links to last month’s deadly attack in Jakarta – only to be released the next day due to lack of evidence.
Commissioner Pol Liliek Darmanto, Central Java police spokesperson, told reporters Monday that the 38 men – two of them minors – had been conducting “semi-military” exercises but not terrorist activities.
"The problem is [their activity] made locals restless," Tribunnews.com quoted him as saying, as he expressed appreciation for people reporting the “suspicious” training so police could take immediate action.
A spokesperson for the Jemaah Ansharus Syariah (JAS) – in which the 38 are members – told Anadolu Agency Monday that their group is misunderstood since its followers broke away from another community that pledged allegiance to Daesh.
"We often make clarifications about it [the suspicions]," Endro Sudarsono said, insisting that JAS focuses on religious, humanitarian and advocacy activities.
"The training had been planned in the organization's annual program," he added, describing the exercises as being aimed at giving its members the skills to respond to disaster scenarios during the region’s rainy season, expected to end in April.
Sudarsono said JAS members had left the Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT) – a splinter group of Jemaah Islamiyah, al-Qaeda’s Southeast Asia affiliate that was blamed for the 2002 Bali attacks that killed 202 people – in 2014.
JAT leader’s Abu Bakar Baasyir had issued a "fatwa" – or edict – that year giving followers three options: declare allegiance to Daesh, quit the group, or establish a new one.
"We chose the third option," Sudarsono said. “We left JAT in 2014 and formed the new community because we didn't support Daesh."
He stressed that they continue to be opposed to the Middle Eastern extremist group, and had conducted an event in the East Javan city of Malang two days ago to criticize its ideologies.
While JAS members have not been threatened since parting ways with JAT, according to Sudarsono, the most prominent Daesh supporter in Indonesia – Aman Abdurrahman, currently incarcerated – has called those not backing the group infidels.
"Sometimes they [Daesh supporters] criticize us, and urge our leader to conduct ‘mubahalah’,” he added, referring to a practice where opposing groups invoke the curse of God on the untruthful party.
According to Noor Huda Ismail, an expert in deradicalization, members of JAS may be prone to conducting acts of terror without the endorsement of the group.
"[Terror acts] become a possibility when those disappointed with a main organization meet a group of [radical] people who are ready to take terror action," he told Anadolu Agency Monday.
Underlining that the risk did not lie with JAS as a formal organization in the public sphere, he warned of its “internal discussions”, describing them as being opposed to diversity and refusing “Pancasila,” a national principle under which Indonesia's diverse ethnicities and religions are unified.
Indonesia has been on alert against extremist activities over the last year, further heightening security measures after a series of bombing and shooting in central Jakarta left four civilians and four Daesh-linked attackers dead on Jan. 14.
Last week, national police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti said that since the incident, police had captured more than 30 people – some of them with alleged direct links to the attack, and others planning to conduct terror acts in the near future.
