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em>A string of coordinated attacks on churches on Christmas Eve 10 years ago have kept Christian communities living in fear of another attacks by terrorist groups. The Jakarta Post’s Hasyim Widhiarto explores how the incident has traumatized the community. Here are the stories:

Simultaneous attacks on more than 25 churches in 11 cities on Christmas Eve 2000 introduced the country to a new era of terrorism.

Parcel bombs made and planted by members of Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), a regional terrorist group fighting for the establishment of a regional caliphate, killed at least 16 people and injured more than 100 – most of them Christians attending mass.

The bloody bombings were the third terrorist attacks that year, following one in Medan, North Sumatra, which devastated two churches, and another at the residence of the Philippine ambassador in Menteng, Central Jakarta.

“For most Christians, the trauma created by the attacks cannot be healed,” said the Rev. Simon Filanthropa, a priest from Mojokerto, a city located 40 kilometers southwest of the East Java capital of Surabaya.

“The overt display of overwhelmingly numbers of police officers deployed to guard churches [every Christmas] is more than enough for us to recall the memory of what happened 10 years ago. The incident has made us fear another attack.”

Jakarta was most devastated by the attacks, with six churches targeted and three people killed, along with dozens injured.

Ten years after the carnage, fear looms among Christians, and Christmas celebrations across the world’s largest Muslim-majority country have never been the same.

The chairman of the National Antiterrorism Agency (BNPT) Insp. Gen. (ret.) Ansyaad Mbai said despite the deaths and arrests of numerous terrorist leaders, there was always a chance that remaining members of outlawed groups would launch an attack during Christmas.

“There’s always the threat of attacks against places of worships. Theoretically, such attacks create a devastating psychological effect,” said Ansyaad.

“The terrorists are aware that such attacks help ignite horizontal conflicts and instability.”

Analysts believe the incident indicated the confidence of terrorist groups to launch larger attacks, culminating in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.

The Christmas Eve bombing has also fueled the rise and aggressiveness of terrorist groups, who used to operate discretely, to turn Indonesia into an Islamic state.

“In the late 1990s, many fundamentalists, especially Afghanistan war veterans, felt utterly disappointed with how the government handled religious conflicts throughout the country, including in Ambon,” University of Indonesia terrorism analyst Mardigu WP said.

“This malcontent was used by JI to arrange a massive and organized attack against Christians, hoping it would inspire other fundamentalist groups to join in a collective movement [to establish a sharia-based country].”

The Christmas Eve bombing saw the rise to fame of terrorist leaders including Abu Bakar Ba’asyir — who became known as JI’s spiritual leader, and Encep “Hambali” Nurjaman, who engineered the bombings.

Hambali, who oversaw the attacks in Java, was reportedly arrested in 2003 in Thailand and is being held by the US government at Guantanamo Bay.

Other figures involved in the Christmas Eve bombings include Imam Samudra, who was executed in November 2008 for his involvement in the Bali bombings. Imam helped plant a bomb in a church in Batam, Riau Islands.

Master bombers Faiz Bafana and Malaysian Azahari Husin, who were both involved in the Batam attack, also featured prominently in the plot.

Dozens of perpetrators — mostly linked with JI — were arrested, but the investigation into the case was interrupted by the Bali bombings.

The public at the time was also skeptical about the investigation as they largely believed the attack was engineered by the Indonesian military and not by Islamic extremists.

“I recalled at the time when most of the public believed the bombing was masterminded by the intelligence community. Such beliefs have actually undermine efforts to uncover terrorist networks,” Ansyaad said.

Al Chaidar, a terrorism analyst from Aceh’s Malikussaleh University said there was small chance that extremists would blow up churches or other non-Muslim houses of worship as it was an old strategy, and that there were more intellectuals in the fundamentalist movement.

“After 10 years, there are now many intellectuals who have joined the [fundamentalist] movement. These people have, so far, successfully influenced militant factions to reduce their aggression against non-Muslims,” he said.

“Instead of attacking churches, they prefer to blow up embassies of European countries that they consider responsible for supporting wars against Islamic countries or Islam itself.”

Although there has not been a major church bombing since, police have repeatedly pledged to tighten security around churches for Christmas celebrations. “There is no change [in the security procedure]. We will work to secure all churches,” National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Iskandar Hasan said recently.

Earlier this month, police found cocktail bombs left near two churches in Klaten and Sukoharjo in Central Java. Police have been unable to identify those behind the incident.