With two devastating bomb attacks under its belt and its first terrorist suspect sentenced to death, Indonesia has seemingly accepted the fact that it faces a serious home-grown terrorist threat that isn't going to go away soon.
Bali bombing suspect Amrozi was sentenced to death by firing squad last Thursday, two days after a powerful bomb ripped through Jakarta's J.W. Marriott Hotel, killing at least 11 people and injuring another 149.
ILLUSTRATION: MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
Initial evidence from the Marriott bombing case suggests that the attack was the handiwork of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) Moslem militant group, also blamed for the Bali bombings on Oct. 12 last year that left 202 people dead, most of them foreigners.
Before the Bali tragedy, Indonesian politicians, fearful of alienating their Moslem constituents, were loathe to even admit that JI existed in Indonesia and firmly denied that there were any terrorists in the country.
In the immediate wake of the Bali devastation, many Indonesians chose to blame the attack on the CIA, allegedly engaging in an evil scheme to discredit Islam.
Others quickly pinned the blame for the blast on the al-Qaeda terrorist network of Osama bin Laden.
But the professional investigation carried out by the Indonesian police into the Bali case, which has led to the arrest of some 88 JI members, has gone a long way towards persuading Indonesians that their countrymen are capable of terror.
"Whether we like it or not and whether we believe it or not, through the disclosure of the [Bali] case, we have come to understand that our country has not only become a target of international terrorism, but also the place of origin of some of its planners, perpetrators and supporters," Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri told the upper house of parliament on July 1.
In the same speech she said, "For the sake of public security, it is more than appropriate, and even a must, for us to take necessary acts to dismantle the terrorist network until its roots."
Four days after those tough words, the car bomb went off outside the US-managed Marriott, using high explosives similar to those used in Bali. This time, most of the victims were Indonesians.
The Marriott bombing was also timed days before Amrozi received his death verdict from a Bali court, as was expected giving the overwhelming evidence of his guilt.
Amrozi, an self-confessed JI member, never denied playing a role in the Bali bombing and showed no remorse for the deaths he caused.
He told police the terrorist act was to kill "whites" and avenge US persecution of Moslems worldwide.
Testimony at the Bali trials and the trial of JI spiritual leader Abu Bakar Baasyir in Jakarta, have revealed loose links between the organization and al-Qaeda, but little to suggest that the Bali bombing was planned and directed by bin Laden's notorious terrorist network.
"JI's an overwhelmingly Indonesian organization," said Sidney Jones, Indonesia project director for the International Crisis Group -- a Brussels-based think tank.
Much has been made of JI's regional links with Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and even Australia, but Jones believes that the group's core leaders are all Indonesians and their main goal is the establishment of an Islamic state in Indonesia.
She has traced the history of the JI back to the Darul Islam, a Moslem militant movement that sought to transform the newly independent Indonesia into an Islamic state between 1955 to the early 1960s.
Both of Indonesia's first presidents -- Sukarno and Suharto -- launched tough crackdowns on Darul Islam and other Moslem militants.
Suharto, in 1985, arrested JI leaders Abdullah Sungkar and Baasyir on charges of treason for attacking Indonesia's secular ideology. Both men fled to Malaysia, where they proceeded to recruit a smattering of Malaysian and Singapore disciples and other Indonesians in exile.
Baasyir returned to Indonesia in 1998 after the fall of Suharto and set up an Islamic boarding school in Solo, Central Java.
Jones claimed that JI has a few followers in Malaysia and Singapore, chiefly used for fund raising, and loose relations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines, but its base of operations is firmly in Indonesia.
JI's very selective recruitment tactics and secretive top leadership, have made it a tough organization to infiltrate.
"I think it's going to be difficult to wipe out," said Jones, noting that many of JI's top strategists, such as Hambali, are still at large.
Beating the JI is going to take good intelligence and maybe even better governance, to prevent such groups from gaining ground in Indonesia.
"I always maintain that as long as Indonesia's conflict issues and injustice can't be solved, the seeds of terrorism will always be there," said Riza Sihbudi, an expert on Moslem militant groups at the Center for Political Studies.
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