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WORLD> Asia-Pacific
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Boys today, bombers tomorrow?
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-24 08:56 But JI does not appear to have been involved in militant attacks in recent years and Jones believes the current centers of radicalism are more likely to be other boarding schools in Java, such as Al-Muttaqien, Darusy-Syahada, Mahad Aly and Darul Manar. Video indoctrination Hand-picked potential militants are often shown videos depicting the violent oppression of Muslims in places such as the Middle East, or Ambon and Poso in eastern Indonesia. "When you read about how (Noordin Top associate) Syaifudin Jaelani recruited people in the mosque, it was by using videos of Ambon and Poso and engaging younger people in discussions," said Jones, adding that it was Jaelani who recruited the suicide bombers for attacks on two luxury hotels in Jakarta in July. Oath-swearing and eventual introduction to more senior members of cells would follow for suitable recruits. Similar tactics are used in southern Thailand, where ethno-nationalist Malay Muslims are fighting to secede from Buddhist Thailand, which they say treats them as second-class citizens. Thai insurgents rely on teachers to find promising students, who swear an oath of commitment and secrecy before joining a clandestine, multi-cell network whose senior leaders they are never told about. An ICG report in June suggested Islamic schools in Thailand invited devout Malay Muslim youths to join "extracurricular indoctrination programs" before becoming rebel foot soldiers. The classroom was the first point of contact. "Recruiters invite those who seem promising devout Muslims of good character who are moved by a history of oppression, mistreatment and the idea of armed jihad to join extracurricular indoctrination programs in mosques or disguised as football training," the report said. Most of the young recruits are invited to join small cells and are given basic weapons training. They are believed to be the perpetrators of the daily drive-by assassinations carried out mostly by pairs of young gunmen riding together on a motorcycle. Jihadi publishers In Indonesia, books, magazines and videos produced by Jemaah Islamiyah or Noordin Top's splinter group are freely available at bookshops. Reuters found books by JI-linked publishing house Kafayeh Cipta Media at a Jakarta book store, while "Jihadmagz" a magazine devoted to Muslim holy war, was sold at Jakarta's international airport. Blogs, Facebook pages and online book order sites can be found promoting JI and their publications. "The publications are important. They are a way for them to continue the spirit of the ideology," said Noor Huda Ismail, who shared a room with one of the Bali bombers when he was a teenage student at Bashir's Ngruki boarding school. He said militants use the publications to bolster their beliefs and justify disobedience of national law, which is described by many of these books as un-Islamic and illegitimate. "I call it shopping for fatwas," he said. More important than the actual reading material, however, are the networks created by the jihadi publishing industry. "Part of the reason Noordin eluded police for so long is because there were so many people in that circle of publishers who are willing to help him," he said. South Thailand's insurgents are unusually secretive and have no known websites or publications. Banning publications that promote jihad would only draw attention to material available on the Internet anyway, said Jones, who is also opposed to a crackdown on radical schools. "A more sophisticated strategy would be to enforce tax laws," she said. "If it were found, as I am sure it would be, that these publishing houses had not fulfilled all their legal requirements or that some of the individuals had not paid their taxes, then that would allow for sanctions that didn't relate to curbs on freedom of expression." She also suggests undercover monitoring of Friday prayers at mosques where recruitment is known to have taken place and training local community leaders to be on the lookout for recruitment activities in their neighborhoods. Reuters
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