The work of police forces, especially the counterterrorism squad, warrant much praise right now. The performance of the counterterror squad across the country these past few weeks has undoubtedly disrupted terrorist activities and cells.
Recently, we also witnessed the increasing capability of the police to prevent terror attacks, by capturing and terminating terrorist cells in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam and Pamulang, Banten province, before any disastrous attacks, which could have occurred during Obama’s visit to Indonesia.
The July 2009 bombings of the JW Marriot and Ritz-Carlton hotels, although injuring and killing innocent civilians, were a wake-up call for police and intelligence to improve their counterterrorism efforts. The attack sped up the police’s capability to prevent terror attack in the future.
As ordinary citizens, we feel glad the police have succeeded in capturing and killing terrorists. Even the comrades of the captured terrorists must feel threatened.
However, doubt still remains after these recent positive developments. It is common to hear that terrorists are not the kind of enemies that value their own lives and this is especially true for terrorist operatives.
Thus our hope is that valuable information and initiative required to identify terror networks and uncover the true extent of terrorist alliances in Southeast Asia, will not be forgotten with the police shootings of high-profile terrorists such as Dulmatin, Noordin M. Top, Urwah and Ibrahim.
The police have their justification. Counterterrorism is one step away from waging a war, or employing soldiers on the battlefield.
The battlefield may be much more confined than a real war and its level of violence can be handled by security actors instead of the military, but the sense of “to kill or be killed” is always real. Putting their lives on the line is what our policemen do every time they intercept terrorists on the field.
However, with the police’s increased capacity to prevent terror attacks, can we be certain that no more citizens will turn to radicalism. Possibly not. The funeral of Dulmatin reminded us of Imam Samudra’s, with a sympathetic crowd cheering “God Almighty”.
More importantly, there are suspicions that an alliance between terrorist cells in the southern Philippines and Indonesia has developed.
Looking at the experiences of other nations always helps, as many of them defined terrorism as threat long before Indonesia did. Israel is probably the best nation to learn from in terms of counterterrorism.
Their police, military, and intelligence agencies are very effective in the management of operations against terrorist groups and their population is determined and resilient in the face of terror.
Yet the fact is that Israel is never free from the threat of terrorism. Our neighbors, Thailand and the Philippines, increased their capability to prevent terrorist attacks and disrupt existing cells before us, yet the threats of terrorism they are facing have not gone away.
In a peaceful democratic state, much like our own, counterterrorism as a battle is only supported by the government in its “clash of wills” with the terrorists. Rather than being a conventional conflict that is won through trials of strength, fighting against terrorism also involves efforts to stop terrorists from gaining supporters or sympathizers.
This means the government must constantly show that nobody wants to live in the world perceived by the terrorists, and that our national objectives and interests cannot be substituted with those of the terrorists, hence the clash of wills.
The problem is, the way we hunt down and kill terrorists hardly illustrates this psychological counter effort.
Terrorists are asymmetric warriors; they are no match for government forces. Indeed, they are not looking for a fight with government forces because of their technological inferiority and weak firepower. But here’s the trick.
The harsher government forces become, the more popular terrorists may also become.
Indeed, terrorists aim to “radicalize” government counterterrorism efforts so they can be perceived as heroes among their supporters.
This situation may not have materialized in Indonesia, but it could go that way if we do not immediately complement existing counterterrorism efforts with antiterrorism efforts.
The overall non-lethal effort to prevent terrorism from materializing is referred to as antiterrorism. The already widely acknowledged view is to enhance the socio-economic condition of low-income people and prevent them from becoming more destitute.
With rising prices of food and electricity, there is still a long way to go before economic growth translates into economic prosperity for all.
I support this view, but for reasons of space and focus of study, the socio-economic dimension of antiterrorism will not be discussed in this article.
Indonesia is committed to its counterterrorism efforts, instead of war, thus our treatment of terrorists should reflect efforts to uphold the due process of law. Getting shot and killed is not the worst price terrorists will pay, rather, standing trial and taking responsibility for shameful wrongdoings in front of the families of innocent victims is much more severe.
Through the fair trials of terrorist suspects, the government not only captures the terrorists, but can show to a wide audience the ideology of terrorism is both unfeasible and illegitimate, and this can be used to deflate the morale of other terrorists or potential recruits.
To support antiterrorism efforts, the police should hardly be alone in counterterrorism, since the logic of law enforcement is not to prevent crime, but also to investigate the facts left at the crime scene.
Preventing a terrorist attack would require the police to work extra hard to prevent terrorists from entering our borders, as Dulmatin did when he traveled from Mindanao.
It would also mean that acting upon continually gathered intelligence or information about terrorist cell movements and funding. Capturing terrorists and identifying incriminating evidence of their activities is the main character of counterterrorism law enforcement efforts.
The writer is the coordinator of the terrorism and international security studies course at the University of Indonesia.
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