T

he Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) released its latest report on terrorism in Poso, Central Sulawesi, saying that the police failure to capture Santoso, the leader of a terrorist group based in the area, was a deliberate strategy to keep counterterrorism funds flowing.

Santoso is the leader of the Muhahiddin of Eastern Indonesia (MII), which has been an important target of military and police security force operations since 2011.

In the 19-page report, entitled '€œIndonesia'€™s Lamongan Network: How East Java, Poso and Syria are Linked,'€ IPAC revealed its discovery that the terrorism in Poso has been used by politicians in Jakarta to obtain more funds for counterterrorism programs and now Poso has become a battlefield between the police and the Indonesian
Military (TNI).

'€œThe effort to combat terrorism involves far more than the capture of a single man or armed band. Neither terrorism nor support for the Islamic State [IS] will go away with the arrest of Santoso,'€ said IPAC director Sidney Jones.

According to the study, the police and the TNI see their roles in Poso in different ways. While the police see the military as wanting to take back internal security functions granted to the police after the separation of the two forces in 1999, on the other hand the military sees the police as incompetent junior partners who have nevertheless secured the lion'€™s share of security funding, leaving the army to search for a meaningful role.

Besides criticizing the government'€™s strategy for tackling terrorism in Poso, IPAC also described the importance of Poso to radical movements in Indonesia, as well as to the IS rebel movement.

'€œPoso has been a place for training for jihad and most of the militants who went to Syria to join the Islamic State had been in Poso,'€ the report said.

According to Jones, in order to understand IS backers in Indonesia, people should look at who supports Santoso.

The report took the stories of six individuals who were from Lamongan, East Java, who supported IS and became bound to the Sunni extremists while training in Poso. The six terrorists had been to Poso and some of them supplied weapons to Santoso.

Today, the report said Poso is known internationally as the place for training extremists and the place where Santoso managed to tackle the security forces.

Poso was rocked by a sectarian conflict between Muslims and Christians from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s.

Thousands of Christians and Muslims became victims of the conflict. Although the conflict officially ended with the signing of the Malino Accords in 2001 and 2002, the region remains a hot spot for terrorism.

Counterterrorism operations have been staged in Poso for the past 14 years, but with no significant results.

National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Agus Rianto vehemently denied the accusations.

'€œNo, that has never happened. We would never [politicized terrorism issues],'€ he said.

Agus said the police force'€™s counterterrorism unit, Densus 88, has consistently worked to eradicate terrorism and even managed to fatally shoot wanted terrorist suspect Daeng Koro last month.

'€œWe have also been successfully arresting his group members and even arrested one on Tuesday [last week] in Poso,'€ he said.