Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood, and the (Un)Making of Terrorists (17 page)

The last of the trio shot in the orange grove that very early Saturday morning was a younger man, born Abdul Aziz in 1971 but known as Imam Samudra. Although his working-class parents adhered to Indonesia’s Islamic Union (Persatuan Islam), which followed a Saudi Wahabi line, Imam Samudra didn’t take much to religious teaching or memorizing the Koran: “I was not so motivated with the Islamic schooling system. I often skipped class…. Once it got to be about two o’clock in the afternoon, I would feel sleepy. It was so boring.”
⁴

He liked science, electronics, computers, chess, and poetry, all of which he excelled at, putting him at the top of his high school class. He knew he had ability and wanted to use it in the service of a great and good cause, as his martyred heroes had done: the assassinated African-American Muslim leader Malcolm X and the executed leader of Darul Islam, S. M. Kartosoewirjo, whose short-lived Muslim state in Samudra’s home province of Serang in western Java showed, if only for a shining moment, what a brave leader could do. Darul Islam, founded in the 1940s with the aim of establishing a caliphate in Southeast Asia, was to provide Jemaah Islamiyah with many of its core members.

Opportunity seemed to knock when Samudra met Jabir, a man about ten years his senior who had studied in the famous Al-Mukmin school in central Java, established by Ba’asyir and Abdullah Sungkar, the founder of Jemaah Islamiyah. Jabir’s father had fought with Kartosoewirjo, and Jabir himself had been in the Indonesian “class of 1987” sent by Sungkar and Ba’asyir to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. So Jabir’s appeal to become a mujahid struck Samudra as from the heart.

The network for sending Indonesian volunteers to train and fight as mujahedin in Afghanistan was a well-running operation that had been in place since the first group, the Class of ‘85. Mukhlas had gone on with the second batch, the Class of ‘86, and Samudra would now join Mukhlas’s younger brother, Ali Imron, in the Class of ‘91. But by the time Samudra arrived, the fighting was mostly over: the Soviets had withdrawn more than a year before, and the communist puppet government of President Najibullah was on the verge of collapse. Although glory would have to wait for another day, the training and, above all, the social networking that cemented faith and fellowship among the self-styled Afghan Alumni would make a strong base for future terrorist actions in Southeast Asia.

In the summer of 2005, I went to Indonesia to interview the Bali bomb plotters. They had agreed to the interviews, and so had the authorities. But just before I landed, a new prison warden was installed and refused to allow further one-on-one interviews (though I subsequently managed to conduct the interviews through third parties). So I flew on to Sulawesi to meet Farhin bin Ahmad, Afghan Alumni Class of ‘87, which included Jabir, the man who brought Imam Samudra into the JI network. The Class of ‘86 included Hambali, the instigator of the Bali plot who is now awaiting trial for terrorism and mass murder along with 9/11 mastermind Khaled Sheikh Mohammed (KSM). In 1996, Farhin hosted Khaled for a month at his home in Jakarta and helped him to buy books and bicycles to take back to Afghan refugees. “We talked about jihad,” Farhin told me, “but nothing concrete.”

Farhin drove the truck with his brother and the bomb that devastated the Philippines ambassador’s residence in Jakarta in 2000. Except for Farhin (who escaped) and his brother (who was caught), most of the network involved in this attack was also behind the Bali bombing two years later. In the lead-up to Bali, Imam Samudra asked Farhin if he could find him some suicide bombers. Farhin demurred. Farhin told me that although he was willing to fight as a muhajid to kill enemies of Islam (and he has killed), and though he yearns to be a martyr (of this I’m nearly certain), he says he doesn’t see the sense of suicide bombing in his country if there’s a risk of other Muslims being killed. Farhin set up a training camp in Sulawesi to funnel fighters into Poso.

The interview is revealing for what it says about how JI networks form, but also demonstrates that once started down the path of radicalization and jihad, not all roads lead to Hades.

Me: “Farhin, tell me how you became involved with JI.”

Farhin: “A man from Darul Islam came to our home in Jakarta and asked my father if he knew someone who wanted to go to Afghanistan to help Muslims fight communists. My father said ‘Yes, here’s my son.’ I was twenty.”

On November 30, 1957, Farhin’s father, Ahmad Kandai, attempted to assassinate Indonesian president Sukarno with a hand grenade. Kandai was tried, jailed, and later released. His sons—Farhin bin Ahmad, Abdul Jabar, Mohammed Islam, and Solahudin—all became jihadis. Kandai strongly believed in Darul Islam’s mission of establishing Islamic rule in Indonesia, but gave Farhin and his other children a secular education.

“On the way to Afghanistan, in 1987, I stopped off in Malaysia and met Ustaz [Teacher] Abdullah Sungkar. He helped prepare me with religious teaching about jihad and physical training—crawling over the ground, running, jumping, martial arts—but no weapons. Then I went to Karachi with a small group on a Pakistani visa. We flew on Aeroflot because it was the cheapest. We went to the Al-Ittihad al-Islami office in Karachi, then three days to Peshawar by bus. We trained for a bit in a muhajrin [refugee] camp and then on to Camp Saddah near Khyber [Pass], about five kilometers from the Afghan border…. For the next two years I studied and trained with the other Indonesians at Camp Saddah. Six months basic training, then six months advanced training: infantry tactics, weapons, engineering [demolition and explosives], intelligence, and map reading.

“I trained for another year and after that gave
khas
[special warfare training, a crash course for those going into battle who haven’t the time for a full training course]. Nine times I got to go on holiday, to the front to fight Najibullah [the Afghan communist leader] and the Soviets, mostly Najibullah. That was our vacation and we all prayed for more of it. Our commander was Afghan; we communicated in Farsi. I also learned Arabic for the religious courses and even some English; we trained sometimes in English.”

“OK, so you spent three years training and fighting in Afghanistan.”

“Not just training and fighting, but also studying: about 70 percent of the time on religion, especially
Aqidah at-Tahawiyah
[Fundamentals of Islamic Creed], and about 30 percent on preparing for battle. Abdullah Azzam came to speak on
fiqh al-jihad.
He taught that we should carry out jihad wherever Muslims are colonized. In Palestine, his own country, Muslims had been badly treated by Israel, the same conditions that face Afghanistan, which was attacked by colonizers. Abdullah Azzam used to say ‘we must continue jihad no matter how long the way.’”

“What did you do after the communists were defeated?” I wanted Farhin to go on.

“I went back home. But I stopped for a while in Malaysia, to work on the chicken farm that Abdullah Sungkar set up. I cleared jungle to make some money before going home and to help the organization.”

“What organization?”

“The Afghan Alumni [among the Indonesians] that Ustaz had sent on to train and fight.”

“Did he ever visit you in Pakistan or Afghanistan?”

“Yes, he came with Abu Bakr Ba’asyir [Sungkar’s sidekick and future successor] for about a month.”

“Then what? Did you go home and did you stay part of the organization? What was the organization’s structure? Did it change in time?”

“I went back to Jakarta. I sold electronics [gadgets] and smoked food on the street. I carried them, no shop or stall. We had small groups of Alumni, and we met about once a week to talk about religion and to do some physical training: martial arts, swimming, but mostly [soccer]. Then, in 1993, Zulkarnaen [the first of the Afghan Alumni, Class of ‘85, and master trainer for the Indonesians at Saddah] came to see me. He asked me if I would be loyal to Abdullah Sungkar. Sungkar rejected Mastruki [the leader of Darul Islam], who preached the ways of the Sufi. Mastruki’s way was not pure Islam.”

“Did you have to swear the loyalty oath to Sungkar’s faction? Did he still consider his faction part of Darul Islam?”

“The Afghan Alumni [in Indonesia] didn’t have to give an oath; he trusted us. The faction was still part of DI until 1995 or 1996 when it became JI [Jemaah Islamiyah] with an organization something like al-Gama’a al-Islamiyah [the Egyptian Islamic group whose spiritual leader, the blind cleric Omar Abdel al-Rahman, is currently serving a life sentence in U.S. federal prison for conspiring to blow up New York City landmarks].
⁵

“The Alumni continued to meet in small groups, discuss religion, train, and play soccer until Abdullah Sunkgar and Abu Bakr Ba’asyir returned [to Indonesia from exile in Malaysia following the fall of Indonesia’s president Suharto in 1998]. Soon after, Abdullah Sungkar died, and some of the others who had come back [from Malaysia] wanted to fight in Indonesia to help Muslims. I helped in the attack on the Filipino ambassador; I drove the truck with my brother. That was August 2000. In September, I went to Poso, in Sulawesi.

“How did you wind up in Poso to fight?” I asked.

“In September 2000, Aris Munandar said I should go to Poso to set up a branch of Kompak [an Islamic charity whose office in Central Java is headed by Munandar] and a Kompak fighting group. Every charity needs an attack group to protect it. I was the head of Kompak in Poso, we had a
dawah
[missionary] team and a military team. I had to set up both. For the fighting group, I set up a training camp here [pointing to the side of the road], right there in the jungle by the sea, because it’s hidden and mostly Balinese live here so no one would suspect a Muslim training camp right here.”

I was surprised: “Why would a charity group need to attack?”

“Because people who fight Muslims won’t allow humanitarian help for Muslims.”

“What’s the relationship between Jemaah Islamiyah and Kompak?”

“No formal relation, it’s person-to-person,” Farhin said in English. “They have the same ideas, the same mission to help Muslims, and they work together and sometimes fight together in the same cause.”

“Are you a member of both JI and Kompak, Farhin?”

“I’m not an official member of anything. You don’t have to be; if your heart and allegiance are with people, then you’re with them.”

“People who are a part of JI, friends of yours, have killed civilians,” I pressed, “not in battle but in suicide bombings, including Muslims. What do you think of that? What did you think of the Bali bombing?”

“I don’t know all of the conditions. Some people say the bomb was an Israeli or American bomb.”

“But people you know—Imam Samudra and Mukhlas—say they did the Bali bombing and are proud of it. Samudra trained the suicide bombers. Mukhlas blessed them all.”

“I know, they probably did the small blast to frighten away people from drunkenness and molesting women, but the big blast was too powerful. Somebody else may have done it.”

“Samudra and Mukhlas say it’s OK to kill other Muslims for their cause,” I persisted.

“It’s not good to kill Muslims, I don’t know if they really believe that, but it’s not good. I wouldn’t do that. I fight only those who fight us, and I support those who fight elsewhere, in Bosnia, Chechnya, Iraq against those who fight to colonize Muslims. But I stay here.”

“Where’s here?”

“Here in my country where Muslims are being killed.”

“Noordin Top and Azhari are continuing with suicide bombings. What do you think of it?” (Azhari Husin, a master bomb-maker, was killed in a shoot-out with Indonesian police in November 2005, and Noordin, a master motivator, was killed in September 2009.)

“Noordin is very good at convincing young men who are eager to fight to be martyrs. He has about ten ready to go in a
thoifah moqatilah
[special fighting group].”

“Would you join such a group to become a martyr?”

“If God wills it, but not to kill Muslims or civilians who do not fight us. That’s what Abdullah Azzam taught in the way of jihad at Sayyaf [the Afghan training camp]. He didn’t distinguish between Muslims. All Muslims are equal.”

“In all those years, did you ever meet Bin Laden or hear the name Al Qaeda?”

“I never met Bin Laden, though I heard his name first when I was at Sayyaf’s camp. I only heard about Al Qaeda after the September 11 attacks. Later I saw in the newspaper that Khaled Sheikh Mohammed was arrested for the attack on America. I saw his picture with a beard. That was strange. He stayed with me at my home [in Jakarta in 1996] for about a month. He was always cleanshaven and very polite to everybody. He dressed well, in Western clothes. He talked about the need for jihad to protect Muslims, but he was mostly interested in helping refugees in Afghanistan.”

ABDULLAH AZZAM’S “AL QAEDA” VERSUS BIN LADENS

Early in the Soviet-Afghan War, Palestinian scholar Abdullah Azzam founded Maktab al-Khadamat, the Services Office for Arab Volunteers, which provided guesthouses in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, down the road from the Khyber Pass, as well as paramilitary training camps in the border regions of Pakistan. In Peshawar, Azzam mentored Bin Laden, who had just finished college in Jeddah, bringing in the young Saudi millionaire to help run and finance the office. Azzam visited some of the training camps to teach
fiqh al-jihad,
the way of jihad.