A network of extremists in East Java illustrates how support for a local jihadi struggle in Poso, Central Sulawesi is linked to support for the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), now called Islamic State. Understanding that network could lead to more effective counter-extremism programs.

Introduction

The trajectory of an extremist network in Lamongan, East Java illustrates how support for local jihadi struggles has been transformed into support for ISIS. Better understanding of that process could lead to the development of more targeted counter-extremism programs.

Lamongan, a district some 50km west of Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city, first came to international attention in 2002 as the home of Bali bombers Amrozi, Mukhlas and Ali Imron and the boarding school their family ran, Pesantren al-Islam. It was in the news again in March 2015 when two sisters-in-law from Lamongan were deported from Turkey with their children after trying to get to ISIS-controlled Syria. One was a widow; the other was trying to join her husband, Siswanto, one of the thousands of foreign fighters in the ISIS army—and a former teacher at al-Islam.

One of the most important lessons of the Lamongan network is that pro-ISIS groups in Indonesia have emerged from existing radical networks that have never gone away. They may have morphed, realigned, regrouped and regenerated but they are not new.

A second lesson is that it is not possible to understand Indonesian pro-ISIS networks without understanding Poso, the former conflict area in central Sulawesi. Since 2000, extremists have seen it as a secure base (qaedah aminah) and training center with the potential to expand into a community that applies Islamic law. In 2009-2010, there was a short-lived project to transfer that base to Aceh, the only Indonesian province authorised to apply Islamic law. When it failed, with police breaking up a training camp in late February 2010 and eventually arresting more than 100 suspects, Poso again became the refuge of choice, under the leadership of a former combatant named Santoso—the target of a massive police operation as this report went to press—who sought to train recruits for the jihad against enemies of an Islamic state in Indonesia. Lamongan provided some of those recruits.

There is more to the Poso story, however. The extremists there were never very strong in terms of numbers or competence. Interest in jihad at home had steadily declined after the strength of radical groups peaked in 1999-2001. But committed ideologues wanted to keep alive the idea of a secure base. They needed to convince themselves that the dozens of often not very impressive men sent to Poso for training would constitute the base for an army of mujahidin that could join the global jihad and lead to the establishment of an Islamic state in Indonesia. The key to this was providing Santoso with an effective media arm, and the Lamongan network did just this, connecting Santoso first with al-Qaeda’s Global Islamic Media Front and then with ISIS. The objective was to create the illusion, both internationally and at home, that the Indonesian effort was bigger and more significant than it really was. The propagandists may have wanted international recognition for Indonesia’s homegrown jihad, but they wanted even more to persuade small-town recruits from other parts of Indonesia that Poso was a war worth fighting. Without international links, what was the attraction?

The would-be mujahidin never seemed to realise how dangerous the connection to Poso was, because it was one place that had intense police surveillance. If Indonesia’s extremists had not kept trying to get to Poso, they probably could have avoided many of the crackdowns that followed. But pursuit by police was a factor in pushing several key Lamongan members to leave for Syria. Many wanted to go anyway, but the steady stream of arrests and the information they produced turmed departure into a necessity.

This report takes the stories of six individuals and shows how their lives intersected to shape a pro-ISIS network in Lamongan. The six are Siswanto, the religious teacher from al-Islam; his brother-in-law, Sibghotullah, who had worked with Santoso; Dayat, a fugitive from Medan who married into a Lamongan family and became a recruiter for Poso; Arif Tuban and Arif Wicakso no alias Hendro who helped set up Santoso’s media arm; and Salim Mubarok Attamimi, a career mujahid and the only one of the six without direct links to Poso.