Indonesian President acknowledges how difficult it is to tackle terrorists' news tactics, organisation and technologies. Jemaah Islamiah, which operates in the region, is changing its structures:  relying on new independent cells, recruiting among young students from "Islamic study groups" and using women as couriers to smuggle explosives and weapons.

Jakarta (AsiaNews) – Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono opened an international conference on terrorism in Jakarta today acknowledging that terrorism is morphing, using better technologies and reviewing its strategies to adapt to tighter international controls.

"Terrorists keep changing their strategies and tactics," he said. They are "more resilient, more autonomous, more creative, more techno-minded and more determined to launch spectacular attacks with no regard whatsoever for casualties".

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, has been hit by five suicide bombings targeting Western interests since 2000. More than 240 people have been killed in the attacks blamed on Jemaah Islamiah, a terrorist group financed by al-Qaeda that operates in South-East Asia.

In recent years, security forces in the region have arrested hundreds of terrorist suspects, and last November they killed Jemaah's explosive expert: Azahari bin Husin. According to intelligence sources, Islamic extremists have responded by re-examining their organisational structure and tactics.

Independent Cells

Indonesian intelligence warned last week in a confidential report that following Azahari's death, Jemaah Islamiah was reorganising itself into smaller, independent cells that continue to recruit suicide bombers in Indonesia. Moreover, the report said, it is forging stronger ties to other groups in Afghanistan, the Philippines and Thailand as well as with militants in jail inside Indonesia.

Called "thaifah mansurah" (or winning teams), these cells comprise mostly young people recruited through Islamic study groups. Each group acts on its own, but altogether they are the main supplier of suicide bombers.

With Jemaah's operational chief and head recruiter, Noordin Mohamed Top, still at large, some terrorists who have been arrested are telling the authorities that the more decentralised structure will make his capture even harder.

Indoctrination in Pakistan

Fresh reports indicate that some of Jemaah's "study groups" are in Pakistan with students coming from Malaysia and Singapore. A house in Karachi was used as the main indoctrination centre. This came to light after Gungun Rusman Gunawan, who was arrested in Karachi in 2003 and is now serving a four-year jail sentence Indonesia for financing the Jakarta J.W. Marriott hotel bombing, confessed.

According to what Gungun told police, the house was rented in Karachi by Kompak, an Indonesian group allegedly involved in the Muslim-Christian conflict on the Maluku islands. There is no evidence that the house is still used as a base of operation, but when it was, young recruits (later shipped off to Afghanistan for military training) met here under Abdul Rahim, brother of Abu Bakar Bashir, Jemaah's alleged religious guide.

The role of Women

Indonesian police is reporting growing evidence that South-East Asian terrorists are using women to smuggle explosives and weapons, this after it arrested a few days ago in two separate operations five women trying to smuggle bomb detonators and explosive materials from Malaysia into Indonesia.

Indonesia's National Police spokesman Brigadier General Anton Bachrul Alam said that women are playing important roles as couriers and recipients of smuggled materials.

Since last October, police have already arrested ten women in possession of detonators, chemical agents and nitrate but they were not able to connect them to any attack in the country.

• indonesia
• malaysia
• pakistan
• philippines
• singapore
• south-east
• asia
• jemaah
• islamiyah
• reorganisation
• new
• strategies
• tactics