Following the attacks on Paris last Friday, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the well-coordinated shootings and bombings outside the group’s territory in Iraq and Syria.

The attacks that killed at least 129 people and injured hundreds of others took place in venues symbolizing cosmopolitan, urban and cultural life of Paris; a sport stadium, concert hall and restaurants. Places that most of us can easily relate to.

This cold-blooded attack resembles, for instance, the 2008 Mumbai Hotel attack and must serve as a wake-up call for the world that the threat from IS and its supporters is no longer a future threat coming merely from returned foreign fighters with IS in Iraq and Syria.

The effect of veterans from the Afghanistan war in the 1980s is an important point of reference; feeling proud of being able to kick Russia out of Afghanistan, veterans led by Osama bin Laden formed al-Qaida and challenged their former mentor, the U.S. From his hideout in Pakistan, Bin Laden orchestrated a string of terrorist attacks from New York to Bali.

Indonesia has suffered severely from the “veteran effect.” The lethality of home grown Islamic groups like Darul Islam and Jama’ah Islamiyah increased and their splinter groups brought carnage to the country, killing hundreds of innocent victims, mainly Muslims.

Despite their arrests and deaths, some “veterans,” such as the late Imam Samudra, one of the main perpetrators of the Bali bombing in 2002, and Abu Jibril, a senior leader of Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia, successfully passed on the spirit of violent jihad to their sons who have fought alongside rebels within IS and another group engaging in armed battle, An Nusro.

Such figures actively encouraged potential recruits and, once they died, they were hailed as martyrs and heroes in their communities. Their tales of bravery and commitment to wage jihad in foreign lands like Syria and Iraq serves as a bedtime story for children raised within their network.

Wives and female members of the fighters ensure that their children will become martyrs. For them, jihad and dying on the battlefield is a life goal worth fighting for.

It took more than nine years for the U.S. and its allies to neutralize bin Laden, who, at the time, did not control territory larger than the U.K. with a constant stream of income from oil like IS does today.

However, history has taught us that closed parochial ideologies, like that of IS, will eventually die because of its own extreme and utopian political goal. We have been hearing stories from disenchanted foreign fighters who have managed to run away from the clutches of IS and yet, as a society, we have failed to engage them properly.

The question is, how much damage can a society bear from a seductive and destructive ideologies like that of IS? How many more innocent victims have to die? How many more women have to be raped and victimized? How long can we endure with the constant prejudice between Muslims and the West that has been successfully instilled by IS acts of terror?

Indeed, the administration of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, like most world leaders, has condemned the attack in Paris, but this is not enough. Using the momentum of this deadly attack, the administration must take bold actions in counter terrorism.

These problems include Indonesia’s weak criminal justice system, ranging from prison to post-prison management. The warden of Cipinang Prison recently said that his prison was designed to cater for only 900 prisoners, but today the prison is inhabited by almost 3,000 inmates. “How can I think of rehabilitation in this setting?” he said. “My obsession is only to make my prison secure.”

How do young people read IS political tractates? Yes, on the Internet and social media. But who translates IS propaganda? The answer is beyond appalling: It was a terrorist recidivist inmate, Aman Abdurrahman, who is now incarcerated in “Indonesia’s maximum security prison” on Nusakambangan Island. Surely, stopping him from agitating other potential recruits from his prison must be a key priority for the administration.

Aman’s teaching, known as “takfiri,” will eventually wreck the very foundation of Indonesia’s plural society through intolerance against differences. Takfiri is an act to accuse another Muslim of apostasy, simply because they don’t share their beliefs.

The accusation itself is called “takfir,” derived from an Arabic world “kafir,” or infidel. Its teaching matches perfectly with IS’ core tenets, which are to divide the world in black and white — either you are with us or against us.

This a very simple yet powerful teaching that will easily mushroom in a society like Indonesia where critical thinking skills are still lacking, among widespread addiction to social media that has sadly been flooded with messages of hate.

It is no wonder that one of Aman’s hard-core recruits, Bahrumsyah, who is now in Syria with IS, so easily managed to radicalize local IS networks in Surakarta, who, failing to travel to Syria, planned to mount attacks at home, targeting churches and police offices.

Luckily, the antiterrorism force Densus 88 successfully disrupted the plot before they executed their deadly plans. But Mr. President, how much luck do we need to prevent more terror attacks from happening in Indonesia?


The writer is founder of the Institute for International Peace Building and is now pursuing a Ph.D. in politics and international relations at Monash University, Melbourne. He wrote this article for the Jakarta Post, a daily published in Jakarta, Indonesia. — Ed.

By Noor Huda Ismali

(The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network)