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their time learning how to shoot firearms, construct explosive devices, use mines,
conduct guerrilla warfare attacks, and read maps.
After the Soviet withdrawal in 1992, training was shifted to a new camp around
Torkham within Afghanistan itself. Interestingly, the Torkham camp was led for
several years by Ngruki graduate and key JI strategist Fathur Rahman al-Ghozi.
Compared to the local Afghan and Pakistani fighters, the foreign students-cumfighters
saw comparatively little action and made only a relatively minor
contribution to the Afghan jihad. This was deliberate, for their mentors had other
plans for them, plans that included other jihads.
In late 1992, Sungkar travelled to talk with the mujahidin in Pakistan, asking
Southeast Asian fighters to decide whether they stood with him and Ba’asyir or
with the old Darul Islam set. These discussions led to the creation of Jemaah
Islamiyah, formally established on 1 January 1993. The move to break with Darul
Islam and adopt the name Jemaah Islamiyah was inspired by Sungkar’s contact
with the Gama Islami (al-Gamaat al-Islamiyah), a radical jihadist breakaway
faction of Muslim Brotherhood responsible for 1993 World Trade Center
bombing in New York City. This shift towards Gama Islami and al-Qa’ida-style
global jihadist Islamism caused a split within the extremist community.
In 1996, the group again shifted training grounds, this time moving from
Afghanistan to Mindanao, where training occurred in facilities provided by the
MILF. The MILF made available a remote corner of their very large Camp Abu
Bakar facility. By this time, Jemaah Islamiyah as we now know it had begun to
take shape: Abdullah Sungkar and a small group of senior Afghan alumni
drafted JI’s manual of philosophy and operations, commonly referred to as
PUPJI (Pedoman Umum Perjuangan al-Jamaah al-Islamiyah: General Guidelines
for the Jemaah Islamiyah Struggle), and JI’s network was divided geographically
into four mantiqi, or spheres of operation. Mantiqi I covered Malaysia and
Singapore, and was conceived of as a base for fundraising and recruitment.
Mantiqi II initially covered all of Indonesia, but a new sphere of operation,
Mantiqi III, was formed to take over responsibility for the island of Borneo
(including Indonesian Kalimantan), the island of Sulawesi, and the southern
Philippines. Not long afterwards, Mantiqi III became home to JI’s major theaters
of conflict. Mantiqi IV was tasked with building capability in Australia.
From late 1999 onwards, JI quietly worked to support local jihad in Maluku and
Sulawesi. In November 1999, Abdullah Sungkar died of natural causes in Ngruki
and the much less charismatic Abu Bakar Ba’asyir became amir in his place.
Ba’asyir returned to Indonesia and founded the Majelis Mujahideen Indonesia
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