Doubts were raised about the origin of the suicide bombers, until Indonesia’s National Police confirmed recently that both individuals were indeed Indonesian nationals.

Nevertheless, for the local population, it was clear that this act was the responsibility of foreign terrorist fighters (FTF).

The Sulu islands region is the cradle of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), a terrorist organization founded by a charismatic Filipino leader, Abdurajak Janjalani. Janjalani received a scholarship from the Muammar Gaddafi government and studied Arabic and theology in Libya in the 1980s. Abdurajak and his brother — Khaddafy Janjalani — are Afghan jihad veterans.

However, some of our interviews in the Southern Philippines challenge the importance of this experience.

Over the years, ASG factions — like the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) before and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF, a splinter cell of the MILF) nowadays — have hosted Indonesian terrorists. From Umar Patek to Harry Kuncoro, Suryadi Mas’oed and Parawijayanto, several Indonesian terrorists have been sheltered and trained in the southern Philippines while struggling with their Moro counterparts against the Manila government.

What can be called the “Indo-Moro” connection has existed since 1977, when the MILF splintered from the Moro National liberation Front (MNLF). The Indo-Moro relationship was deeper than merely a terrorist movement. Indeed, the political agenda of the MNLF and the MILF was to “free” the “Bangsamoro” people and was not related to the current violent jihad movement.

Siti, an Indonesian national and the widow of a former Indonesian MILF subcommander, explained that, in the 1990s, the MILF began to recruit people from Islamic universities in Indonesia, like the Syarif Hidayatullah Islamic State University (UIN) in South Jakarta, where she was studying. Siti supported the struggle of her husband and other mujahidin against Manila and moved to the southern Philippines.

Their objective was the establishment of an Islamic government in the southern Philippines. Our interview with Kagi Karialan, the leader of a BIFF faction, confirmed that this was a long-lasting connection. He said around 300 Indonesians and Malaysians had fought against the Manila government under the leadership of Hashim Salamat, the deceased leader of the MILF.

This special relationship between Indonesians and the Moro militants continues to this day, particularly with the ASG faction under the leadership of Hatib Sawadjan.

Sawadjan, does not, according to our interviews with local ulema, have any religious education but acquired his legitimacy from his appointment by the Islamic State movement when Isnilon Hapilon, the previous leader, was killed during the Marawi siege in Mindanao, southern Philippines.

His faction is considered the most attractive for FTF, as it has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group. Most of these foreign terrorists, including Indonesians, are hosted by Sawadjan’s faction in Patikul camp in the Sulu area.

The investigation by Philippine authorities and Indonesia’s National Police shows that the Sawadjan faction played an important role in the Jan. 27 bombing. It is now possible to recount the journey of the Indonesian couple. Rullie Rian Zeke and his wife Ulfah Handayani Saleh were living in Makassar, South Sulawesi. Rullie had been a member of the Makassar chapter of the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) before the couple decided to join the IS in Syria. However, upon their arrival in Turkey in 2017, authorities arrested the family and deported them back to Indonesia.

Like every returnee, they were held in a rehabilitation center supervised by the Social Affairs Ministry. The family passed the rehabilitation assessment and returned to its hometown, where they resumed normal activities, while likely retaining their desire of hijra (‘moving to’ or embracing ‘true’ Islam) and violent jihad.

Back in Makassar, the couple met with Andi Baso, an operative of home-grown extremist group Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), who proposed that they pursue their radical agenda in the southern Philippines.

Andi Baso then coordinated with both his network in Sabah and with the ASG Sawadjan faction in Sulu to smuggle the couple from Makassar to Nunukan on the border with Malaysia, then from Nunukan to Semporna, in Sabah, Malaysia, and from there to Sulu. The antiterrorist force Densus 88 discovered the role of Andi Baso after the arrest and interrogation of the Sabah cell smugglers, who stated that their Indonesian contact was a JAD Kalimantan cell operator.

Several important patterns emerge from this case. First, the two suicide bombers were deported as they were looking to join the IS in Syria and Iraq. The handling of such returnees is a growing concern as, in this case and in many others, the rehabilitation program set up by Indonesia’s Social Affairs Ministry has shown some weaknesses. Moreover, efforts to monitor returnees are limited.

Since 2015, the FTF special task force of Densus 88 has handled thousands of returnees without specific regulations or tools to prevent them falling back to their radical activities. Indeed, some of these returnees continue their radical preaching and activities, as they, like Rullie and Ulfa, might still want to commit terrorist acts.

Second, the pattern followed by Rullie and Ulfa confirms that the regional dimension of terrorism has outlasted the Marawi siege. Cross-border terrorist operations are enduring and should urge governments to review their cooperation in order to tackle this threat at the regional level.

Note that groups like the JAD have increasingly decentralized their leadership and decision-making, leading to increasing connections with extremist groups in the southern Philippines. Our field research also shows that the current connection with the ASG Sawadjan faction led an increasing number of FTF to join the southern Philippines battlefield.

These FTF and their Moro counterparts have shown how far they can go in violence during the siege of Marawi. It might have failed, but FTF have learned a lot about regional governments during this battle.

A second Marawi, be it located in the Philippines or neighboring countries, is still possible.

________________________

Ulta Levenia is the lead researcher of Galatea on Terrorism and a consultant for Semar Sentinel Pte Ltd., a business risk consultancy where Alban Sciascia is its director and an author for Galatea. The abovementioned ongoing field research in the southern Philippines is funded by Semar Sentinel.

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