Bombing season in Bali?

The list has a doom-laden inevitability about it: 2002 first Bali bombing; 2003 Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta; 2004 Australian Embassy bombing in Jakarta; 2005 second Bali bombing.

2006 …?

These outrages are all believed to have involved Noordin Mohammed Top, a Malaysian citizen who is allegedly one of the key bomb makers for the Indonesian jihadist group Jemaah Islamiya and one of Asia’s most wanted men. The concern for authorities in Jakarta and Canberra is that he will not want the year to slip by without another headline-grabbing atrocity.

It is a proposition supported by the South-East Asia Project Director of the International Crisis Group, Sidney Jones. Speaking at a meeting of the Canberra branch of the Australian Institute of International Affairs, she said media hype about this time of the year being the “bombing season” in Indonesia, has some basis in fact.

“I am sure that despite all the pressure that Noordin and company remain under now, they will at least make an attempt to do something by the end of the year,” she said.

The ICG, a non-governmental organisation dedicated to resolving conflict through analysis and advocacy, believes JI has undergone a radical transformation since the first Bali bombing claimed 202 lives, many of them Australian tourists, four years ago. Ms Jones says Indonesian authorities have struck some telling blows with more than 300 arrests, taking out much of the organisation’s “middle management”.

However, this has not crippled JI. Rather it has fragmented into a number of small cells, working entirely independently of each other, which have the potential to cause even greater problems. Although many of them are amateurish and lack resources “it only needs one or two of them to be successful”, she said.

“What this means is that even if Noordin is arrested tomorrow, the danger posed by jihadism in Indonesia is not going to go away anytime soon.”

What is even more ominous is that the ICG has now discounted early analysis that last year’s second Bali bombing was a slipshod effort carried out by a coterie of amateurs desperate for any kind of impact. On the contrary, it believes it was a meticulously planned operation with a cold acceptance of what is no longer possible and what can still be achieved.

Bali was chosen again not for any idealistic beliefs that a bombing would undermine the country’s fledgling democracy, or that it would cause economic chaos in the province, simply that it would saturate media coverage both in Indonesian and Western media around the world.

The group opted for smaller backpack bombs because security has become too tight for vehicles and it no longer has the team available for the complicated assembly a car bomb involves. Security also means major Western-style hotels are impractical targets so the softer options of crowded restaurants were pursued.

Clues to the group’s aims and motivation can be found in literature discovered after the second Bali bombings, including a rather frightening manual, obviously produced for international consumption, which goes into the minute details of running a terrorist cell in a world of heightened security awareness and tough counter-terrorism measures.

It acknowledges the era of large organisations is over and urges Muslims everywhere to form cells, with just a handful of members in each. It mandates a strict division of labour - a person with weapons expertise, another experienced in intelligence gathering and security, and at least one other with computer skills. The leader should be significantly older than the others, be physically strong, have religious authority, military training and experience.

There are strict guidelines for recruiting new members, including a number of tests and activities they must undertake. Members should be physically fit and the manual suggests this can be achieved by joining sports clubs. A tactic used by some groups in Indonesia has been to form nature lovers’ societies, which can safely head into remote areas for training without arousing suspicion.

This and other calls-to-arms which circulate freely within Indonesia stress the argument that terrorism is the only effective tactic that can be used against the might of the “Crusader-Zionist alliance”. The literature promotes the theory that winning a clash of civilisations for the West is official United States policy.

“All Muslims and Muslim movements are going to be targeted and Islam has to be united in order to fight back,” one passage says.

Another worrying development in the wake of the arrest of JI leaders concerns the composition of the remnant groups. ICG has discovered that not only has the average age of the membership dropped considerably, but so has its background. In the past JI’s leadership contained a significant proportion of “Afghan alumni” - recruits who had received training in weaponry and tactics in Afghanistan. Over the past three years they have increasingly given way to veterans of the sectarian conflicts in Ambon and Poso.

Having been involved in sometimes brutal fighting, these newcomers may be even more willing to use violence against civilians than their predecessors. Ominously, the extremists are now targeting the Indonesian Government and its supporters, which they see as toadies of the US and its allies.

What then is the strength of the JI remnants in Indonesia, and have their aims been modified to meet their changed circumstances? The International Crisis Group estimates that at its height JI had no more than 2,000 committed members and about the same number of supporters.

The ultimate aim of the mainstream is still the establishment of Dar-es-Islam, a single Moslem state stretching from North Africa, through the Middle East and South Asia and taking in Indonesia. However Ms Jones suggests the motivation for the independent cells and for individuals such as Noordin Mohammed Top is less ambitious but infinitely more practical.

“They want to make Western nations tremble,” she said. This involves the disruption of the way of life we take for granted, such as our access to travel, our commitment to free speech and generally liberal values in an open society.

As has been proved by the chaos at Heathrow and other airports following the foiling of a plot to smuggle bomb-making materials on to airliners in hand luggage, this is a goal that can be achieved even by a botched operation in an increasingly nervous and beleaguered world.