We hope so. We want Poso situations is safe for everyone.Forces taking part in Operation Tinombala, which aims to hunt members of the East Indonesia Mujahiddin (MIT) led by Indonesia's most-wanted man Santoso, aka Abu Wardah, have beefed up security in anticipation of the terrorist group gaining new recruits.
The joint team comprising Indonesian Military and National Police continued on Sunday to heighten security measures on the border zones of Poso and Lembah Napu areas, which comprise North Lore, Central Lore, East Lore and Lore Piore. Personnel checked all vehicles coming into the areas without a valid reason, hoping to prevent new people from joining with the terrorist group, which is now hiding in Central Sulawesi's Poso forests.
Central Sulawesi Police chief Rudy Sufahriadi said tighter security precautions imposed in Poso were based on the existing evidence. A resident of Medan, North Sumatra, was arrested in Poso Pesisir Utara on Thursday.
From an identity card confiscated during the operation, Rudy said, the Medan resident's name was Joanda Pratama, 28, and he lived on Jl.Garu II A No.57, Harjosari I sub-district, Medan Amplas, North Sumatra.
During his interrogation, he admitted that he had been lured to Poso by Santoso's calls for jihad which have gone viral on YouTube recently.
"He was motivated by the calls to jihad and he decided to come to Poso to join Santoso, but we managed to arrest him [before he joined the terrorist group]," said the police chief.
Rudy said that in his testimony, Zaelani Effendi, a Santoso terrorist group member who was arrested in February, claimed that the features of the victim were similar to those of a group member. However, he said that what he could not confidently identify the person in the picture provided by the joint security team, as the victims face was severely wounded.
"There are two of Santoso's men with characteristics similar to those of the corpse," said Rudy, repeating Zaelani's report. Although he could not confirm the victim's identity, Zaelani suspected that he was Sobron, aka Son Haji or Abu Sulaeman, the police chief further added.
Rudy said that it was very unlikely the dead body was a victim of a shootout between MIT terrorists and security officers and that there were strong suspicions that Sobron was executed by his own colleagues when he attempted to surrender to security authorities.
"It was reported that the Santoso group considered him a thogut [infidel]. He was also considered to have slowed down the group's movements, so it was probable that he was executed by the group's other members," said Rudy.
He further said it was well known that any MIT member indicated to have lost faith in the group or anyone trying to surrender to security authorities would be shot or killed. His or her face would be damaged so he or she could not be recognized. This was because of their principle that it was better to die as a syuhada (a person who dies for Islam) than die as an infidel after surrendering to their enemies, said Rudy.
During Operation Tinombala, security authorities have killed at least five MIT terrorists, namely Fahruddin, aka Udin; Agus Surianto, aka Farhan; Dodo, aka Ponda or Fonda Amar Soalihin; Magalasi Bahtusan, aka Farok; and Nuretin, aka Abdul. Zaelani is the only MIT member who has been captured alive (http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/03/20/police-military-step-security-counter-possible-new-mit-recruits.html#sthash.T6uUKRlU.dpuf)
Poso's Solution Needs Comprehensive Approach
Poso in Central Sulawesi has been becoming more famous because in this district has been established a group's terrorist is called the East Mujaheeden Indonesia (MIT). MIT's itself is declared to be loyal or obey with global terrorist group's such as Al Qaeda and Islamic State (IS) which is commanded by global terrorist chief, Abu Bakr al Bafghdadi.
As another group terror, MIT has a special purpose along with their rebellion movement. One of MIT purpose is reached Indonesia become as religious state especially based on Islamic's value. MIT's member also unbelieved with state ideology, Pancasila and they will not honor the nation flag "Merah Putih".
The effort of military and police apparatus in Poso, Central Sulawesi has implemented a tighter security measures is normal to avoid or to prevent Poso's resident has been joining to Santoso's group.
To conquer terrorist group's or rebellion group's is how the government apparatus especially law enforcement apparatus and security apparatus including intelligence apparatus make an effort to separate resident from terrorist group's and the government apparatus should be influenced resident more than terrorist group's done it. These task is an enough high risk task because most of terrorist group's might be had resident support than the government apparatus.
It is not easy to beat or to conquer Santoso's group as known MIT group's because those group's has enough capability on military combat, terrain and weather situation, intelligence gathering because it might has a resident support to these groups several strategic information, technology and information because its group also use social media to recruit new members and last but not least those group has a millitant and bravery spirit because they are believe that what's their struggle have a permission by God.
Furthermore, Poso's solution needs comprehensive approch from security approach to soft approach. Security approach in Poso would be done by Tinombala operation. Those operation has aim to urges rebels surrender even less the commander of MIT, Santoso is believed to still be around Poso because his younger wife was pregnant.
Meanwhile, law enforcement operation could be done in Poso, Central Sulawesi through it sought throughout the judge's decision regarding cases of crimes against humanity and terror which done by Santoso's group get severe punishment, unless they surrendered.
At the same time, a soft approach should be used to solve Poso's security problems through preventing terror group's effort in social media to promoting their ideology, to testimony their stories and to recruiting a new members. These effort can success if all stake holders in Indonesia specially human right watch group and political observer aren't blame these efforts with a make statement all those effort could be raised a human right violation or decreasing democracy value in Indonesia.
All stakeholders must realize that criminal justice system couldn't be implemented to minimalizing a terror threat, because a terror action is an extraordinary crimes so that we need an extraordinary law to tackle these problems.
We hope so. We want Poso situations is safe for everyone, because the existance of MIT groups make Poso had been disadvantaged.
*). The writer is a senior reporter/journalist and a senior researcher at LSISI. Residing in Riau Islands Province.
Pewarta: By: Amril Djambak *)Editor : M. Tohamaksun
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