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Boys today, bombers tomorrow?

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-24 08:56

JAKARTA: Unbeknown to 12-year-old Andika Bayu Pamungkas and his friends, the seemingly innocuous martial arts sessions in their Indonesian village were actually the first steps towards being turned into suicide bombers and militants.

Former students of Islamic militant Susilo, Andika Bayu Pamungkas (left) and Kevin Yovi Pratama this week sit in front of Andika's house in the village of Kepo Sari, Solo, Central Java in Indonesia.[Agencies]

Recruitment efforts of young, malleable boys such as Andika at schools and sports clubs is a routine method used by militants in Southeast Asia to cultivate the next generation of suicide bombers and separatist rebels.

Andika and his friends discovered the real purpose of their martial arts classes when their instructor, Susilo alias Adib, was unmasked as an associate of Noordin Mohammad Top, the mastermind behind a string of suicide bombings. Malaysian-born Noordin was being harbored in Susilo's house.

"Susilo told my friends and me to stay back at the house after all the other students had gone home and the four of us would learn martial arts. He was afraid of other people finding out," Andika told Reuters. "He told us, 'This is our secret. Don't tell your friends or your parents, OK?'"

Kevin Yovi Pratama, 9, was another of Susilo's secret students. "We always practiced in a room with the door shut, so my mother and my friends wouldn't know about it," he said.

Susilo also lectured at a nearby Islamic boarding school where he told students that suicide bombers were "martyrs", rewarded in heaven for their acts.

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Recruitment drives such as these, as well as other activities such as nature trips, after-school activities and blogging, can be stepping stones to more hardcore recruitment processes such as oath-taking or weapons training.

But these activities do not break the law, posing a conundrum for lawmakers who risk driving the groups underground and offending voters by cracking down on legal religious activities.

While the vast majority of Indonesia's Islamic boarding schools are moderate, a handful have played a vital role in producing the region's top militants.

"The problem is not so much the curriculum as it is the small after class religious study sessions, where individual teachers can assess the potential of students and draw them into more extremist activity," analyst Sidney Jones wrote in a report for the International Crisis Group (ICG) in August.

"Given the extent that radical preachers have relied on 'nature training' and other excuses to take youth groups out to nearby hills for physical fitness training, there should probably be increased alertness on the part of parents to such programs."

Several of the Indonesian schools are linked to the regional militant network Jemaah Islamiah (JI), which has as its spiritual head Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir.

Bashir's al-Mukmin boarding school at Ngruki, Solo, produced several graduates who went on to plan and execute a string of deadly attacks in Indonesia.

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