US asked Indonesia to send troops to fight Islamic State, says former Jakarta foreign minister

Indonesia's former foreign minister Marty Natalegawa said Jakarta felt sending troops to fight IS would have been ''cosmetic''. Photo: AFP

Indonesia was asked by the United States to send troops to join the fight against the Islamic State terror group in Iraq but declined because it feared a backlash among radical Muslims at home, the country's former foreign minister has revealed.

Marty Natalegawa, the long-serving top envoy under Jakarta's previous administration, said Indonesia felt it could better contribute by tackling its own domestic extremism problem, whereas sending forces would be "cosmetic".

Despite Washington's eagerness to pull together as broad a coalition as possible to fight the terror group, the US had accepted Jakarta's refusal, Dr Natalegawa said at an event at the Australian National University's Crawford School.

"When Indonesia was asked to join in the coalition of forces to fight ISIS on the ground at one time, our response at that time was our best contribution to fighting the ISIS menace would be to ensure such an ideology, such a menace, does not proliferate in what is the world's largest Muslim-populated country," he said, using an alternative acronym for the group.

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"That to us is a more meaningful contribution ... Having to join such an effort to simply make up the numbers ... makes for a wonderful photo opportunity whenever these friends or groups meet in Geneva or some other European capitals, but it can create a backlash, an unintended backlash, back home."

Dr Natalegawa did not name the US. But asked which country had made the request of Jakarta, he joked: "Who would be the main proponent of the gathering of [countries]? So that country would be the one."

The US pulled together a broad coalition including many Muslim countries in the Middle East. While deciding the Islamic State group needed to be stopped, the Obama administration was wary of creating perceptions of another Western invasion of Iraq.

Dr Natalegawa continued: "To be fair, the country concerned got the point that we could do far more by addressing our own internal situation rather than deploying just for superficial, cosmetic, perception purposes of this small number of troops."

His mention of fighting "on the ground" apparently refers to a request for trainers or advisory troops, as Washington has so far refused to get involved in ground combat in Iraq.

Australia is the second-largest contributor to the fight against the Islamic State after the US, having sent about 500 training and advising troops, as well as about 400 RAAF forces as part of an air campaign.

RAAF Hornets are carrying out bombing raids, while air-to-air tankers are refuelling coalition aircraft and a Wedgetail radar plane is helping co-ordinate the air campaign.

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Source: US asked Indonesia to send troops to fight Islamic State, says former Jakarta foreign minister