As early as three months ago a new radical faction of Jemaah Islamyah, a splinter wing of hardliners, led by Noordin Muhammad Top, whom experts and analysts believe was in or still is in the Southern Philippines.

That is according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI): Which says  Noordin Top and Abu Tholut, a former regional commander and military trainer who was based in Mindanao.  They are believed among with those in hiding in the Southern Philippines the new core of a new terror cell or group behind the bombings in Jakarta.

“At the core,” of ASPI report says are Mindanao trained hardliners. ” Militants from the southern Philippines moving to Indonesia could breed a new generation of radicalized fringe groups”.

Increasingly JI hardliners are pulling together a new faction of JI, a “hardline group,” more linked to ‘original Darul Islam factions of Indonesia,’ the report said, “Advocates al Qaeda-style attacks against Western targets.” The new group unnamed by experts.

Noordin has long ties to Mindanao, this is where Indonesian authorities say Noordin received military training and applied his training in both the Ambon conflict and in attacks in Jakarta and elsewhere.

Noordin’s work with an Iraqi citizen is also a regular of intel reports from the southern hotspots of Jolo, Basilan, and central mindanao, Umar Al Farouq, in 1999.

Al Farouq is believed to be one of Al Qaeda’s operatives in Southeast Asia.

NEW  STRATEGY: Infiltration of soft target

Insp. Gen. Ansyaad Mbai, the head of antiterrorism at the Coordinating Ministry of Political, Legal and Security Affairs, warned that Noordin’s group is using a new tactic, although using suicide bombers is a conventional mode of operation, a more sophisticated side to it came to light, as the bombers had infiltrated the targets.

registering in the hotel and taking the time to find targets gathered. Possibly assembling all bomb components inside a hotel room thus evading security.

“Previously, suicide bombings were conducted from the outside, from the front of the hotel, but this time, amid the tight security system, they could still break through to the main target,” he said.

That faction is viewed as one that is hardline and continue to believe that the use of violence against the ‘enemies of Islam’ is the report from ASPI says, has a core of Noordin Top, as heads the most violent group, military commander Zulkarnaen, electronics and bomb-making expert Dumatin, and recruiter Umar Patek, and that all are now hiding with or have been with the Abu Sayyaf Group in the Southern Philippines.

Reports from Jakarta point further towards Top’s group – with evidence from forensics teams showing that, “the bombs were homemade and filled with nails are similar to JI has used in previous attacks.”

Further that a unexploded bomb that the police found in the Marriott 1008 registered ironically under the name Nurdin Aziz, is identical to bombs discovered during raid that led to arrests at a Islamic boarding school in central Java’s town of Cilacap, which is owned by Noordin’s wife, who is the daughter of the school’s headmaster.

JI: forgotten by many as a threat

In a way the rest of the world in particular the Australians down under thought – that JI was dormant, done for, and incapable of carrying out action. Wishful thinking, or perhaps a attitude many had in some sectors of society and media who are tired of the war that has been on-and-on and on for the last decade. Technically however, JI has now split into two – and Top’s group is viewed as separate and distinct from the rest of JI but is new wing.

But after a July 14th call from the Jemaah Islamiyah’s spiritual leader, Abu Bakar Bashir, for a renewed jihad against the West in a video posted on the Internet July 14 just three days before the bombings in Jakarta, A day before the pair of bombers checked into room 1008 of one of thre hotels. A full week and a half after Philippine authorities warned that new JI bombers had graduated in Mindanao. More analysts began to see the possibility J.I. was back.

[] … Indonesian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, dormant following an effective police crackdown resulting in the arrest and execution of some members, could be set to strike again …AAP  July 16tg…[]

POLITICAL Savvy of extremists often overlooked

There yet both here and in Indonesia when Politics turns its head and becomes the center of everything, few remember things like three of JI’s top leaders are in the Philippines allegedly a fourth the man in charge of major training programs in Mindanao was granted his freedom along with 100 of J.I’s hardliners in a general amnesty.

Hence, the immediate reaction to the bomb attacks here and yes even in the hours of just after the attack were knee jerk that the attacks had something to do with the recently concluded political polls there likewise here that they might have something to do with 2010. At least in the case of some bomb attacks near the capital.

Which they may have in a way – remember Al Qaeda has timed attacks near or around election times – it has even assassinated political leaders during campaigns.

But, indications are this was attack is part of a growing  which we rote about here on July 9th that Mindanao bomb attacks and possibly a few in Manila were in part the work of a resurgent JI force in the country.

A day or so before, on the 8th the Police commander for western mindanao said that at least 40 newly trained bombers were in the southern Philippine, attacks took place – smaller in scale than those of norm of JI, that later, were called graduation excercises. At the Senate reports in testimony showed that over the last six months some 62 attacks had taken place claiming some nearly two dozen lives injuring dozens more.

Warnings were issued, Bomb attacks and foiled attacks also took place wherein the targets seemed to cover a wide spectrum of events. Among them government agency offices, banks, and other targets not normally part of the ussual range of those carried out by JI or the ASG or other rebel groups.

The attacks show one pattern – random hits versus lightly guarded targets. In some cases using explosives that were known for ripping PTNT type explosive charges with little fragmentory parts. The PNP issued several warnings. High ranking officials in the Military all said the same thing.

Then on the 15th a report was issued by a Australian counter terrorism think tank,  Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) security where analyst Carl Ungerer and its director of the International Institute for Peacebuilding in Jakarta Noor Huda Ismail both warned of possible strikes anywhere in the region. The same report put Nordin Top – now the main suspect as the man behind the attacks – as the main suspect – for Jakarta’s twin blasts at the hotels.

Jemaah Islamiyah is  the main suspect. That group also bombed Jakarta’s Marriott in 2003 and has attacked other tourist sites in Indonesia. Hence from nearly all analysts one thing is clear that, “The July 17 bombings targeting two hotels in Indonesia indicate that extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah, still has the ability to launch terror attacks.” so now say most analysts JI is back.

But it is not the same J.I. they used to know – it has hardend core, new tactics, and a old deadly mission reborn.

Popularity: 11% [?]