Foreign people are the target of terrorist attacks
Jakarta (AsiaNews) Australian intelligence reported that Jemaah Ilamiyah (JI) is adopting new tactics finalised to the assassination of foreign citizens. Terrorists of JI have recently entered the country through Mindanao island (Philippines). Their goal is to kill Western diplomats and businessmen.
According to leading terrorism expert Sidney Jones, leaders of JI are rethinking their strategy of terror. JI terrorists think that assassinations can be more effective than bomb attacks. The reason behind this change is that car-bombs kill Indonesians and foreigners alike. For instance, the Marriott blast killed 11 Indonesians and only one foreigner.
This new strategy was adopted in the recent Al Qaeda attack in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia. Indonesian anti-terrorism services think that JI will imitate Al Qaeda. Relations between the two terrorist organisations have been existing for a long time. Sulawesi Island is a known centre of JI operations and once was the site of an Al Qaeda training camp. A lack of political will and Indonesian weak legal system are compromising the war on terror.
President Megawati Sukarnoputri's leadership seems to be ineffective. According to an Indonesian senior police officer "when it comes to any issue regarding Islam, she won't make a decision. What we need is a national leader to make a clear decision on terrorism". Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the former coordinating minister for political and security affairs, is a presidential candidate for the election which will take place on July 5th. He appears to be the only one having a coherent policy for dealing with the terrorist threat.
The lack of protection for those people who fight against terrorism is another sign of the system's weakness. On May 26th, in Palu (central Sulawesi), four gunmen killed Ferry Silalahi as he was droving home from church. Silalahi had prosecuted three men charged with a role in the October 2000 Bali bombings. He was also investigating 36 Muslim militants charged with the murder of 12 Christians. The crime was committed in October 2003, in Poso Pesisir, central Sulawesi.
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