jemaah islamiyah in south east asia: damaged but still ... - SEAsite

Jemaah Islamiyah in South East Asia: Damaged but Still Dangerous
ICG Asia Report N°63, 26 August 2003 Page 17
North Sulawesi. 68 This meant that Indonesians
would have no difficulty blending in, and there was
a possible support structure in key transit points
like General Santos City.
Fathur Rahman al-Ghozi was given responsibility
for getting the training up and running, according to
some of the Afghanistan veterans, but he only
arrived in the Philippines in December 1996 – at
least according to his own highly unreliable
testimony.
Others had come earlier. For example, Sardjiyo
alias Sawad, a man suspected of involvement in
many JI bombings, told interrogators that following
the completion of his training at the Sayyaf camp in
1995, he went directly to the Philippines from
Afghanistan, changing planes in Kuala Lumpur and
Manila, before finally arriving at Camp Abu Bakar.
He says he stayed for two years in the MILF camp,
fighting the Philippines armed forces. 69
Wan Min, a Bali bomb suspect, also testified that
he was sent to Camp Abu Bakar for two months in
1996 while construction of JI facilities was still
underway, and that the JI training there did not
really begin in earnest until 1997.
A. CAMP HUDAIBIYAH
JI had its own Camp Hudaibiyah in a remote corner
of the sprawling Abu Bakar complex, near the
border with Lanao del Sur. The aim was to
replicate the Afghanistan training as far as possible,
with many of the same instructors: Afghanistan
veterans Muchlas, al-Ghozi, Mustopa, Mustaqim,
Mohamad Qital, and Syawal all went to Mindanao
as teachers. An Indonesian named Muhajir alias
Idris was also a trainer, and Haris alias Ahmad, an
Indonesian resident in Selangor and member of
Mantiqi I, coordinated the scheduling. 70 MILF
trainers also taught the recruits.
68 Communication with Indonesian consulate in Davao,
Philippines, 2 July 2003.
69 Interrogation deposition of Sarjiyo alias Sawad alias
Zaenal Abidin alias Ibrahim, 23 April 2003. Sarjiyo is
suspected of involvement in the bombing of the Philippine
ambassador’s residence in Jakarta, the Mojokerto
Christmas Eve bombing, and the Bali bombing, as well as
smuggling arms from the Philippines to Indonesia (twice)
in 2000 and 2001.
70 Interrogation deposition of Faiz Abu Bakar Bafana, 22
October 2002, in case dossier of Abu Bakar Ba’asyir.
The regular JI program was three years for training
new instructors, six months for regular “cadets”,
but JI only managed to get in two groups of the
three-year students before Camp Abu Bakar was
overrun by the Philippines military in 2000. The
military aspects of the six-month course included
weapons training, demolition and bombing, map
reading, guerrilla and infantry tactics (raids,
ambushes, and the like), field engineering,
leadership, and self-defence. The religion
curriculum provided instruction in basic law,
traditions of the Prophet, faith (aqidah), worship
(ibadah), proselytisation (dakwah), and, of course,
jihad.
Non-JI members could take a one-year instructors’
course or a four-month short course, and many recruits
opted for the latter. One young Javanese described the
difference between the two courses as follows:
In four months, we only got an introduction to
bombs and guns and lessons on how to use
them, whereas at the academy level, people
were trained how to make them. 71
It is not clear how many Indonesians went through
Camp Hudaibiyah, but there may have been several
hundred. Faiz Abu Bakar Bafana told investigators
that at the time he went to Camp Hudaibiyah in June
1998 for firearms instruction, there were twenty
other Indonesian “cadets” undergoing training. 72
Information made available to ICG shows that in
one course that lasted from May 1999 to February
2000, the firearms class was divided into three
groups of eleven men each, all apparently
Indonesians. The trainers included Abdul Hadi,
Abu Bakar, Abdul Mukosid, and “Mr Benji”
(almost certainly MILF leader Benji Midtimbang),
the head of the Bedis Military Academy, the
MILF’s training school within Camp Abu Bakar. 73
Just as the military academy in Afghanistan had
been divided into qabilah, the JI training in
Mindanao was divided into Camp Solo (for recruits
from Central Java), Camp Banten (for recruits from
West Java) and Camp Sulawesi, also known as
Muaskar al-Fateh.
71 Interrogation deposition of Joko Ardiyanto alias Luluk
Sumaryono, 19 July 2003.
72 Interrogation deposition of Faiz Abu Bakar Bafana, 13
December 2002, p. 15.
73 ICG interview Manado, April 2003.