350 JI MEMBERS RELEASED FROM INDONESIA’S PRISON

Open source reported that Indonesia government has decided to release 350 detainees from local prison. The entire former inmates were the members of the most ruthless terrorist group in Southeast Asia, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI).

2. Among those, who were released are Taufik Abdul Halim, Malaysian and JI technical expert, as well as brother-in-law of the one of most wanted terrorist Zulkifli Abdul Khir @ Marwan. Taufik was detained after the failure of an attempted bombing of a shopping complex in Jakarta on August 1, 2001 and since then was put in jail for almost 13 years. He is also a member of Kumpulan Mujahiddin Malaysia (KMM) who has assassinated the late Dr. Joe Fernandez, former state assemblyman of Lunas, Kedah.

3. Meanwhile, Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hisamuddin said that the government will table a white paper on the threat of “IS” in the Parliament in a very near time. This proactive move should be welcomed by the Malaysians. 

Opinion 

4. Releasing 350 members of JI in the single day does not sent a positive signal for the peace and security in the Southeast Asia. Being in jail for many years, may have given some opportunity for the rehabilitation, however, to assume all had been renewed spiritually and mentally does not sound realistic. While it may be too early to conclude on the outcome of releasing them in a bulk, yet the intelligence and other law enforcement agencies need to intensify their surveillance on the above-mentioned former inmates.

5. While the JI’s network was successfully dismantled and almost the entire top-twenty leaders either killed or detained, yet it was not good enough to assume the Southeast Asia terrorist group is completely decapitated. While JI’s existence may not be in an active form but the ideology might be still strong and afresh. The foremost agenda of JI was to create an Islamic state by merging Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Thailand, as well as southern region of the Philippines into a single administration, known as Islamic Caliphate. To accomplish the goal, the terrorist may change their platform from JI to IS and continue their aspiration for an Islamic state.

6. Regarding the white paper, I’m of the opinion most probably “IS” threat has been growing greater than previously and before the situation goes out of control,  government wishes to put a pull-stop, as well as to bring the issue to the centre of public.#