Australian embassy bomber's role in Jakarta attacks exposes jail weaknesses

Leaders and masterminds of January attacks were Nusakambangan island prisoners acting on Islamic State orders, police chief says.

Jakarta:  Jakarta's police chief has revealed the key role the Australian embassy bomber played behind bars in masterminding this year's Jakarta terror attacks and admitted incarcerating terrorists together is one of the weaknesses of Indonesia's penal system.

Inspector General Tito Karnavian​ also told a forum on terrorism that one of the suspects arrested after the terror attack in Jakarta on January 14 was plotting to target Bali, the Jakarta airport and an international school.

However, he stressed the plot was "still at the stage of an idea" and there was nothing to be worried about.

Australian embassy bomber Iwan Darmawan, also called Rois, is on death row on Nusakambangan prison island for planning the 2004 suicide bomb attack outside the Australian embassy that killed 11 people.

Inspector General Tito said Rois had provided two of the suicide bombers – Dian Juni Kurniadi​ and Ahmad Muhazan​ – for the January 14 attacks in central Jakarta that left eight people dead.

Rois was also sent 200 million rupiah (about $20,000) for the Jakarta attack from Abu Jandal, an Indonesian who joined Islamic State in Syria.

Inspector General Tito said Rois and Indonesian cleric and convicted terrorist Aman Abdurrahman, who is also imprisoned on Nusakambangan, were the leaders and masterminds of the Jakarta attacks at the local level.

"Which also may be one of the weaknesses of our prison system," he said.

"They are put together in the same prison then they can communicate, they could make a plot of attacks. They can regroup."

Inspector General Tito said Rois had already been sentenced to death over the Australian embassy bombing.

"But he will still be legally processed [over the Jakarta attacks]," he said. "If he is really involved there is a strong reason to accelerate the execution."

​Hendro Fernando, who Inspector General Tito said was considering attacks in Bali, at an international school and Jakarta airport, was one of 40 people arrested after the January attack.

Six or seven of those arrested are believed to be directly connected to the Jakarta attacks.

Police seized nine weapons from Hendro in Bekasi, east of Jakarta, which had been stolen from Tangerang prison and sold to the extremists.

However, Inspector General Tito said the guns were intended to be transported to Santoso – Indonesia's most wanted fugitive terrorist – in Poso, Central Sulawesi, and had nothing to do with the terror plot.

"But apart from that they are thinking also about attacking Bali, about attacking airport, about attacking schools," he said.

"I repeat, it was still at the stage of an idea. So they haven't gone there ... they were perhaps inspired by the Bali bombings."

Indonesia needed to neutralise terrorism at a state level via law enforcement and countering extremist ideologies, Inspector General Tito said.

But terrorism was a global threat that would remain as long as IS existed in Syria and Iraq.

"That is correct that Indonesia can contribute to solve this global threat," Inspector General Tito said.

"But in my personal observation, a global response via the international community to solve the problem which is in Syria and Iraq is more important."

Singapore-based terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna told the forum there were now 24 groups in Indonesia that had pledged allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

IS's strategy was to create two caliphates, or states, in south-east Asia, he said.

One would be led by Santoso in eastern Indonesia and the other would be in the Sulu archipelago in the Philippines.

"So in the next 12 months we are likely to see two provinces established, one in Indonesia and one in the Philippines," Dr Gunaratna said.

Earlier this year four Islamic terrorist groups in the southern Philippines merged to form a satellite extension of IS, according to a video posted on a jihad website.

Australian Attorney-General George Brandis​ also warned last year that IS had identified Indonesia as a location for a caliphate.

Dr Gunaratna said the recent Jakarta attack had clearly demonstrated that Indonesia had to fix its prison system.

"The threat was organised from within the prison. It was directed from Syria," he said.

Dr Gunaratna said rehabilitation should be mandatory for all prisoners convicted of terrorism offences.

"No inmate or detainee should be released until that person has been deradicalised," he said.

"The Indonesian police has done a remarkable job in fighting terrorism but unless the prison system gets fixed together terrorism will proceed in this country."

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The story Australian embassy bomber's role in Jakarta attacks exposes jail weaknesses first appeared on The Sydney Morning Herald.

Source: Australian embassy bomber's role in Jakarta attacks exposes jail weaknesses