Jakarta's limitations are exposed

The weekend bombings on the tourist-packed holiday island of Bali, which killed at least 26 people, have rekindled fears about the persistent threat of Islamic extremists in southeast Asia.

But as people digest the details of the latest attack to hit Indonesia, security analysts and senior officials say the bombings have exposed a grimmer reality.

Three years after the October 12, 2002 nightclub bombings that killed 202 people spurred Jakarta into action against a homegrown terrorist threat, Indonesia is still confronting the limits of its ability to contain Islamic extremists.

"It is another reminder that these networks are incredibly complex and that even with the best counter-terrorism efforts in the world, authorities are not going to eradicate them easily," says Sidney Jones, an analyst for the International Crisis Group and the world's leading expert on Jemaah Islamiyah, the Al Qaida linked group whose members are thought to be most likely responsible for the bombings.

The importance of Indonesia's fight goes far beyond the borders of the sprawling archipelago.

More than a third of the victims in the 2002 Bali bombings were Australian and more were among the victims in last Saturday's blasts.

JI has long had training camps in the Philippines, many of its most senior members are Malaysians and the group first rose to prominence when plans surfaced for an attack on Singapore.

Separatist insurgency

Officials in Bangkok in recent weeks have blamed Indonesian extremists for helping to fuel a separatist insurgency in southern Thailand. And JI members have been linked to other jihadist groups as far away as Pakistan and Spain.

Despite JI's reach, Saturday's bombings further prove that Indonesia is still the main battleground in the region where the fight against terrorism will have to be waged.

With the help of Australia and other neighbouring countries Indonesian police have cracked down on JI and its members and notched significant victories since the 2002 Bali attacks.

By Jones's count, about 250 people have been arrested for terrorist activities in Indonesia, with about half of them JI members. Death sentences have been handed down.

In addition, a vigorous manhunt has been mounted for two Malaysians, Azahari Bin Hussain and Noordin M. Top, two JI members tied to the 2002 Bali bombings, the 2003 attack on Jakarta's JW Marriott hotel and last year's bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta.

Experts also believe the fact that attacks other than the 2002 Bali bombings have killed mostly Indonesian Muslims has caused a split in JI between those focused on the long-term aim of creating a south-east Asian Islamic caliphate and others intent on more immediate action.

The JI faction most intent on bombings appears to be led by Noordin and Azahari, a UK-educated engineer thought to be the group's lead bombmaker, Jones says.

While on the run in Indonesia, the pair have been recruiting outside JI's ranks, she says, and linking with smaller Indonesian radical Islamic groups.

They may even have gone so far as to form their own splinter group, something people have told Jones is called Thoifah Muqatilah, or fighting force in Arabic.

Likely culprit

As a result the most likely culprit in the most recent Bali attack may technically not be JI at all but rather the new splinter group headed by what now amount to rogue members.

These internal rifts only complicate how the government will tackle the task of cracking down on JI's broader infrastructure.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono condemned the bombing and influential moderate Islamic groups did the same. But senior officials say sensitivities in Indonesia's Islamic community continue to limit what they can do to fight extremists.

The government, says one senior official, feels under pressure from moderates not to issue an outright ban on JI, for semantic reasons Jemaah Islamiyah translates essentially as Islamic people.

The government also is loathe to move more forcefully against the radical boarding schools JI has used effectively as recruiting grounds.

One official said moderates "are all worried that if they were too firm they would be called lackeys of America, or the west", a damaging allegation in an archipelago that is the world's largest Muslim nation where the Iraq war and US support for Israel are intensely unpopular.

"In a sense SBY [Mr Yudhoyono] himself is facing that same dilemma."

That can lead to Indonesia projecting awkward images to the outside world, even in the face of tragedy.

At Al Mukmin, the central Java boarding school founded by Abu Bakar Bashir, JI's alleged and jailed leader, students were going about their business as usual yesterday and preparing to defend Bashir due to be released from prison next year against claims he was involved in the attacks.