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JAD 'migration' to Papua, digital recruitment warrant close watch: Analysts
The second arrest of suspected JAD members in Papua could indicate the decentralized Islamist group's departure from its traditional haunts on Java, Sumatra and Sulawesi, but could also spell more trouble for both the province and the country as a whole through its use of digital technology.
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A stock photo shows a sleeve patch featuring the owl mascot of the National Police’s Densus 88 counterterrorism squad. (Persda Network via kompas.com/Bina Harnansa)
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second round of arrests netting suspected Islamist militants in the easternmost province of Papua, security and intelligence analysts say, indicates that religious extremist groups were seeking to set up camp outside of their usual bases on Java, Sumatra and Sulawesi.
Papua, which has a majority Christian population, has been at the center of a long-standing separatist conflict that has heightened recently after simmering for decades.
Analysts believed that members of the Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) who hailed from Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi had come to Papua to escape the National Police’s Densus 88 counterterrorism squad, which had intensified its crackdowns of the group from 2019 to 2021.
The JAD is a homegrown network of Islamist militants that has pledged allegiance to Islamic State (IS) and is believed to be behind a number of terror attacks in the country.
“Geographically, Papua is advantageous for them,” Stanislaus Riyanta, a Jakarta-based intelligence and terrorism analyst, told The Jakarta Post on Friday. “They are looking for alternatives that are more [accommodating] and have targets at the same time.”
Relocating to the province was a survival tactic, Stanislaus said, as the network’s members were being hunted down in many parts of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi. This was particularly so after a 2018 court ruling that outlawed the JAD, which provided strong legal justification for law enforcement agencies to surveil, arrest and prosecute people connected to the group.
Read also: Court ruling justifies further crack down on JAD
