 |
| Image: Flickr User - Karl-Ludwig Poggemann |
By Luke Hunt
The Southeast Asian state is intensifying efforts against the threat.
Indonesia is intensifying its efforts to mitigate any fallout from home-grown recruits returning from the battlefields in the Middle East, where hundreds have fought with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
The Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), which has a membership of 50 million Sunni Muslims across Indonesia, is conducting an anti-extremism campaign denouncing ISIS. Indonesia’s campaign is proving to be a timely throw back to that old maxim: what’s old is new again. NU was established and found its feet in the 1920s when Wahhabism – an orthodox brand of Islam based in Saudi Arabia – was spreading its fanatical tentacles. Osama bin Laden was an adherent of the sect.
The NU campaign coincides with hearings against at least 13 men now facing charges of conspiring with terrorists. Aged between 32 and 51, seven of the 13 are on trial together. They had raised fears that militants could return and carry out strikes on home soil, where the memories of the carnage caused from bombings conducted by Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) – an al-Qaeda affiliate – remain vivid.
Trials involving another six are also underway. They all face up to 20 years behind bars under Indonesia’s tough counter-terrorism laws.
Read the full story at The Diplomat