The rise of Islamic State in the Middle East is increasing the risk that long-subdued terrorist networks here may undergo a dangerous revival, security experts said Monday.
The group’s emergence in Syria and Iraq and the potential spread of foreign-trained militants pose a “serious challenge to Indonesia,” said Andy Rachmianto, director for international security and disarmament at Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry.
“A number of foreign terrorist fighters have come to our backyard,” he said. “They want to fight, they want to do jihad…in Indonesia.”
Hundreds of Indonesians have gone to Syria to support Islamic State, government security officials have said, and authorities have been trying to anticipate the effect of returnees as well as other Islamic State supporters traveling to Southeast Asia.
In July, Indonesia convicted four ethnic Uighurs of trying to link up with one of Indonesia’s most-wanted terror suspects, a militant leader known as Santoso.
Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, was racked by terrorism in the early 2000s committed by offshoots of al Qaeda, including the 2002 Bali bombing that killed 202 people, many of them foreign tourists. Police have mostly destroyed the main networks since then.
Islamic State?s Rise Risks Sparking Indonesia Terror Revival - WSJ
