It is slowly consolidating support and strengthening its militant wing, according to analysts.
It is preparing itself and waiting to strike when the time was right, Jasminder Singh, a terrorism expert from the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore told Today Online.
According to a report by the Indonesian-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), JI is set to make a comeback in Indonesia by building influence through religious outreach and preaching in some 40 JI-linked Islamic schools in Indonesia.
The Today Online report said the recent arrest of Abu Thalha Samad, a 25-year-old Singaporean member of the group, had brought JI under scrutiny again. In recent years, the high-profile Islamic State (IS) has been getting more attention.
It quoted Jasminder as saying that many of the group’s members, who had been imprisoned and released, had reconnected with the JI networks they used to know.
The senior analyst at RSIS’ International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research told Today Online: “The rise of JI has been ongoing. Due to the focus being on (groups affiliated with IS), the JI-affiliated groups have been given the space to grow and consolidate.”
At its peak, JI is said to have had networks across countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Australia. Of late, however, its influence has been largely confined to Indonesia.
According to Today Online, in 2002, 13 Singaporean JI members hatched a plot to plant bombs near the Yishun MRT Station, with other similar plans that targeted commercial centres.
The same year, JI, which made its presence felt in the region after the 9/11 attacks in New York in 2001, carried out bombings that killed more than 200 people in Bali.
According to the IPAC report, subsequent crackdowns by Indonesian authorities gradually depleted JI’s financial resources. The arrest of JI’s leaders, including Abu Bakar Bashir, dealt a major blow to the group’s leadership structure.
Also, splinters within the group contributed to its influence waning. For instance, Malaysian JI leader Noordin Top broke away to form his own association and “some of JI’s smartest militants” followed him.
By 2005, the group was already in “financial dire straits”, the IPAC report said.
However, three years later, remaining senior leaders began the revival of JI by shifting its strategy and focusing more on garnering community support through religious preaching, and less on violence, the report said.
It started to be more involved in grassroots activities and the Indonesian political scene.
Some JI members even took part in demonstrations, demanding that Jakarta’s then governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (also known as Ahok) be ousted after he was accused of blasphemy against Muslims.
The IPAC report said JI revived its military wing in 2010.
“The purpose of the new military wing is not to deploy it in acts of terrorism, but to build a capacity for producing and using weapons in preparation for an eventual confrontation with the enemy – or bid for power,” the IPAC report added.
It said that in 2012, JI started acquiring arms and weapons, relying heavily on the skills of members trained in Mindanao, the Philippines, to produce homemade firearms and knives.
JI also sent some of its members to Syria to “acquire combat experience and more in-depth military training”.
Jasminder told Today Online JI’s move away from violence was just a “facade”and that violence was still an essential ingredient in its ideology.
On Nov 9, the Singapore Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) announced that Abu Thalha – one of three radicalised Singaporeans who had been arrested since September – was a member of JI.
He had been living away from Singapore for 15 years and had been studying and undergoing paramilitary training in JI-linked schools in the region, having taken an oath to be a JI member in 2014, the MHA said.