East Indonesia Mujahidin: “Tamkin” Terrorists
Acts of terror against civilians have reoccurred in Central Sulawesi, where a gold miner was killed and mutilated on Dec. 30, 2018 in Salubanga village, Sausu, Parigi Moutong.
The mutilated body of the gold miner was then displayed dramatically to spread terror among authorities and the general public. The following day, when police officers tried to retrieve the body, the terrorists ambushed them with gunfire from two hills. The access road was barricaded with branches to obstruct the police vehicles.
The shooting began when a police officer was trying to remove the branches from the road. An inevitable shootout occurred and two police officers, Andrew and Baso, were injured.
The MIT Group
In various online videos, the group is seen calling itself the East Indonesia Mujahidin (MIT) with an operational base in Central Sulawesi and plans to expand to Ternate in Maluku and to Papua.
Based on the movements of terror groups in Indonesia, two major groups have been identified: (1) the West Indonesia Mujahidin (MIB) led by Abu Roban and (2) the East Indonesia Mujahidin (MIT) led by Santoso, aka Abu Wardah. The MIT is now under the leadership of Ali Kalora, after Santoso was killed in 2016 by a joint military-police operation in Tinombala.
Many MIT members have been either arrested or killed, leaving only seven surviving members in 2017. The manhunt continued and by mid-2018, the MIT had only four members and one rifle. However, the group now has around 12 members and five firearms, either stolen or obtained from the southern Philippines.
The MIT has an expansive network that stretches beyond Southeast Asia, with several Uyghur rebels in China once joining the group. The MIT effectively became a global terror group in 2014, when it declared its affiliation to Islamic State (IS). Pro-IS terror groups in Indonesia include Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), Khatibul Iman, Al-Hawariyun, the Pro-IS Islamic State of Indonesia (Pro-IS NII), the MIB and many smaller groups.
JAD currently remains the largest terror group in the country and has a highly open recruitment process, including online channels on a variety of social media sites. Meanwhile, the Khatibul Iman terror group led by Abu Husna, formerly of the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), retains a strong following in Jambi and Surakarta.
The Al-Hawariyun group led by Abu Nusaibah (arrested in November 2017) remains a recruitment hub for terror groups in Jambi and is in contact with the Syria-based terrorist, Nandang. The Pro-IS NII has followers in Bandung, Makassar and Riau. The MIT, since it came under Ali Kalora’s leadership in 2016, actively spreads terror in eastern Indonesia. Some sort of rivalry exists between these terror groups in proving their existence through various forms of violence.
‘Tamkin’ terrorism
The territorial terrorism run by members with backgrounds and strong natural ties their area of operation is called “tamkin” terrorism. Theoretically, we can identify two types of terrorism: “tamkin” terrorism and “tanzhim” terrorism.
“Tanzhim” terrorism is a form of organized crime that commits inhumane and violent attacks that are not tied to the perpetrators’ places of origin. A tanzhim terrorist can be born in Bandung, raised in Sumatra, and commit attacks in Bekasi or Jakarta.
On the other hand, “tamkin” terrorists commit attacks where they were born and raised, where they spent their formative years and to which they have strong emotional ties. Tamkin terrorists are not merely the natural residents of a specific locale. They often feel as though they have been called to set their land free through a separatist or insurgent movement due to their emotional bond and solidarity with their brothers in the land of conflict. Governments often called such areas red zones or hostile areas. Humanitarian activists often called these lands conflict areas.
A particular area with a separatist movement that wishes to “set free” the locale is often deemed a conflict area. Without the presence of certain parties that have laid claim to these regions, these movements would have no plans to set the area free. These parties feel that they are representing the region’s natural residents when negotiating or signing ceasefires with the recognized government.
Tamkin terrorists are groups the have grown organically and claim to be fighting for the freedom of specific areas with inherited ideologies, such as Papua, Poso, Maluku amd Aceh. Tamkin terrorism is led by local actors who Antonio Gramsci (1971:56) describes as “organic intellectuals”.
Bruce Hoffman (1998:67) wrote that such crimes of “heroism” are carried out upon the orders of violent intellectuals that lend religiosity to the cruel act of murder committed in the name of different ideologies and political views. It is these ulema of violence that I call “violent organic intellectuals” that exist in every tamkin terror group (2015:15).
Meanwhile, tanzhim terrorists often take their orders from violent ecclesiastical intellectuals based outside of the group’s area of operation. These transnational violent intellectuals often come from the same religious sects as the perpetrators, such as the Wahabi sect. (Al Chaidar, Lecturer, Anthropology Department, Malikussaleh University, Lhokseumawe)