IPAC Report 42: Extremists in Bandung: Darul Islam to ISIS – And Back Again?
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Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC)
(Jakarta, 12 February 2018) Members of a Bandung-based faction of the old Darul Islam movement who joined ISIS might be persuaded to disengage if the Indonesian government can manage their detention wisely.
“Extremists in Bandung; Darul Islam to ISIS – and Back Again?”, the latest report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), looks in depth at a group from the Seventh Regional Command (komando wilayah 7 or KW7) of the Darul Islam movement. Many members of KW7 in Bandung, who had previously avoided violent extremism, were convinced that ISIS’s control of territory in Syria and Iraq made it preferable to the Islamic State of Indonesia (Negara Islam Indonesia, NII) that they claimed still existed. They became the Bandung branch of Jamaah Ansharul Daulah, but some are reportedly having second thoughts with ISIS defeats in the Middle East.
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Indonesia faces a particular challenge addressing areas where NII factions have been entrenched for generations. This report suggests that it would be worth exploring whether some of the same mechanisms that have held them together over the years – in this case provision of health and education benefits – might be also used to draw them out of extremism.
See link above for full summary.