“Lone Wolf” or JI?: Jemaah Islamiyah confusion after attack in Malaysia | Politics News

Medan, Indonesia – Malaysia was the target of a rare deadly attack after a man armed with a machete attacked a police station in the southern state of Johor, killing two police officers and wounding a third.

Malaysian police initially said they suspected Friday’s incident was linked to the hardline group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and that it was likely an attempt to steal weapons. Speaking to the media after the attack in Ulu Tiram town, Inspector General of Police Razarudin Husain said police searched the suspect’s house and discovered “JI-related paraphernalia.”

Five members of his family were arrested, including the suspect’s 62-year-old father, who police said was a “known JI member.” Two other people who were at the police station at the time of the attack in the early hours of Friday morning and filed a complaint were also arrested.

But on Saturday, Malaysian Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail of the JI link appeared to backtrack, describing the attacker as a “lone wolf” who was “driven by certain motivations based on his own understanding because he rarely associated with others.”

Former JI members in Indonesia told Al Jazeera that an attack by the group on Malaysian soil was unlikely.

Ali Imron spoke from prison in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, where he is serving a life sentence for his role in the 2002 JI bombing in Bali that killed more than 200 people. He told Al Jazeera that JI’s profile in Malaysia did not seem to match the attack on the police station.

“There has never been a JI member in Malaysia willing to commit such acts of violence,” he said. “Before the Bali bombing, there were attacks in Malaysia, but these were not carried out by JI but by Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia (KMM).”

KMM, a hardline group affiliated with JI, carried out small-scale attacks in Malaysia in the early 2000s.

Rueben Dass, senior analyst at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, noted that JI had never carried out attacks in Malaysia before.

“Malaysia has always been considered an economic region for JI and not a focus of attacks,” he told Al Jazeera. “The Malaysian authorities have always been vigilant and attentive, especially after KMM became active. They were on the alert and carried out a wave of arrests of JI members in the early 2000s.”

Since then, JI has kept a low profile, he said.

“It’s a little surprising to see them popping up again,” he added.

Indonesia, which experienced a spate of JI attacks in the late 1990s and early 2000s – including attacks on churches on Christmas Eve 2000, the Bali bombings and the attack on the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in 2003 – has also been largely successful the fight.

In 2003, with funding and training from the United States and Australia, it established Counterterrorism Special Detachment 88 (Densus 88) and later established a National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT).

In addition, the Indonesian authorities have launched a number of de-radicalization programs. They use former members of radical groups such as the JI. However, according to the Jakarta-based think tank Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, the recidivism rate is around 11 percent.

Story by JI

JI was founded in 1993 by Indonesian Muslim scholars Abu Bakar Bashir and Abdullah Sungkar with the aim of establishing an Islamic caliphate across Southeast Asia.

The group has a history of ties to al-Qaeda, from which it reportedly received funding and training in the 1990s and early 2000s. It had members in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia and the Philippines.

JI was officially banned in Indonesia in 2007, leading to the group’s fragmentation. Some members focused on dakwah, or proselytizing, while others continued to plan violent attacks. Arrests continued throughout the region, with members accused of stockpiling weapons and bomb-making equipment.

According to open source data, between 2021 and 2023, of the 610 people arrested in Indonesia, 42 percent were JI and 39 percent belonged to other hardline groups – including Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) and other pro-Islamic State groups.

Most senior JI officials were either executed, shot in police raids, or imprisoned.

Both Bashir and Sungkar lived in Malaysia in the 1980s and 1990s, in addition to senior members such as Indonesian Encep Nurjaman (aka Hambali) and Malaysians Noordin Mohammed Top and Azahari Husin. Ali Ghufron (aka Mukhlas), Amrozi bin Nurhasyim and Imam Samudra, the masterminds of the Bali bombing, also spent time in Malaysia.

Hambali was arrested in Thailand in 2003 and is currently awaiting trial in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, while Samudra, Amrozi and Mukhlas were executed in 2008. The two Malaysians were shot dead in separate police raids in Indonesia in 2005 and 2009.

Before his death, Noordin ran Malaysia’s Luqmanul Hakiem Islamic boarding school, founded by Bashir and Sungkar and located in Ulu Tiram, near the home of the suspect in Friday’s attack.

Malaysia closed the school in 2002 because of suspicions that it was being used to recruit people for JI.

Attack style

While the profile of the suspect’s father and proximity to Luqmanul Hakiem possibly indicated a JI connection, Imron cautioned against such an analysis.

“If the son had followed his father, there is no way he would have committed this act, so there is a strong possibility that he was inspired by ISIS (ISIL),” Imron said, suggesting that Malaysian authorities “came to this conclusion be”. ”

Umar Patek, who was released from prison in 2022 after serving 11 years of a 20-year sentence for mixing some of the chemicals used in the Bali bombing, told Al Jazeera he “does not believe” the attacker was a member of the JI and agreed that the attack appeared to bear the hallmarks of another group.

“I have great doubts,” he said. “I don’t understand, especially not carrying out a violent attack. In my opinion it is impossible that it was JI, but it is possible that it was ISIS.”

The style of the attack has added to skepticism, as the attacks on a police station and Muslim police officers are inconsistent with JI attacks in Indonesia. There, it was hardliner groups inspired by IS, including the JAD, that attacked police stations because they viewed them as representatives of the state.

Judith Jacob, Asia head of risk analysis and intelligence firm Torchlight, told Al Jazeera that the most unusual thing about Friday’s attack was the location.

“While Malaysian militants have been key figures in JI and Philippines-based groups, there is little evidence of sophisticated conspiracies specifically against Malaysia in recent years,” she said.

But while Malaysia and Indonesia have not experienced anywhere near the level of violence seen in the early 2000s, attacks have not been completely eradicated – a pattern of more opportunistic and low-profile violence is emerging.

“The attack in Malaysia is all about regional Islamist militant groups – meaning it is a relatively simple attack,” Jacob said.

“Indonesian groups in particular were largely unable to carry out the large-scale attacks or coordinated bombings that were a hallmark of JI in its heyday in the 2000s. Militant groups in the Philippines are more capable, but they too have been unable to carry out sophisticated bombings beyond the southern islands.”