Terrorist hydra rises again in Indonesia

Friday's bombings in Jakarta have confirmed fears among terrorism analysts that deadly new factions have arisen within the Jemaah Islamiyah organisation responsible for earlier attacks in Bali.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) in Canberra warned this week of a violent JI revival, even with its failure to mount mass casualty attacks since the Bali bombings of 2002 and 2005, and the arrest of key members over the past 18 months.

Radical splinter groups have emerged, frequently with contempt for the former leadership - especially those who have rejected wholesale jihad against the Western world.

The bombings yesterday have also justified continued warnings by Australia's Foreign Affairs Department, which for months has advised its nationals to reconsider their need to visit Indonesia.

The department said it had continued to receive "credible information" that terrorists could be planning new attacks - especially in Jakarta and Bali - and that travellers should exercise extreme caution.

High among the potential targets was the Marriott Hotel, regarded as a symbol of Western presence, and which was targeted in an August 2003 suicide bombing that killed 12 and injured another 150.

The Marriott was the first hotel attacked yesterday.

An analysis by ASPI's director of national security, Carl Ungerer, and Noor Huda Ismail, the executive director of the International Institute for Peacebuilding in Jakarta, pointed to the existence of informal JI networks and support groups unknown to counter-terrorism agencies.

Their paper warned that the potential for violence had increased through tensions within the JI leadership and the release from jail of more than 100 members, including Abu Tholut, a former regional commander and military trainer on the southern Philippines island of Mindanao.

"There is evidence that some of these individuals are gravitating towards hardline groups who continue to advocate al Qaeda-style attacks against Western targets," the paper said.

Several senior JI leaders remain at large, including Noordin Top, who heads its most violent group, military commander Zulkarnaen, electronics and bomb-making expert Dumatin, and recruiter Umar Patek, now hiding with the Abu Sayyaf Group in the Philippines.

Under pressure from security agencies, JI leadership has lost cohesion and unity, with the emergence of divisions such as spiritual leader Abu Bakar Ba'asyir's new Jemaah Anshorut Tawhid group, and the "traditionalists" of rival Abu Rusdan.

Rusdan's faction opposes further bombings and urges members not to take part in any attacks in the belief that the use of violence is justified only as a means of protecting Muslims in areas of conflict.

Rusdan told a recent interviewer that the time was not yet ripe for jihad in Indonesia, and that the Bali bombings had hurt Islam and JI by damaging its image and bringing it under the constant scrutiny of security agencies.

The ASPI paper said that the exclusion of members such as Abu Tholut from the central JI command would not dissuade them from jihad, and could lead them to join violent splinter groups such as Noordin Top's group.

"These hardline groups continue to believe that the use of violence against the 'enemies of Islam' is justified under any circumstances," it said.

These groups dismissed many senior JI members as NATO - no action, talk only - and remained convinced that armed struggle was the primary means of achieving the ultimate goal of an Islamic caliphate, or theocratic government, spanning Southeast Asia.

The hardliners were supported by a group of young, dedicated individuals who shared a deep commitment to the cause, advocating al Qaeda style attacks that directly targeted Westerners and Western interests if the time was ripe, the paper said.