By Philip Golingai*
The Star
Nov 18, 2017
The man behind Indonesia’s de-radicalisation program assesses the terror threat after the fall of Marawi and Raqqa.
“DO you want to order nasi lemak or roti canai?” I asked Nasir Abas. I was curious to know whether the exiled Malaysian, once one of the most wanted Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) militants in South-East Asia, missed Malaysian food.
“Let me look at the menu,” he said.
Subsequently, he ordered fried kway teow at Tjap Toean restaurant in Jakarta’s state-of-the-art Soekarno-Hatta International Airport Terminal 3. We met at the airport on Tuesday as I was flying in from Balikpapan in Kalimantan and he was flying to Jogjakarta for a militant rehabilitation program.
“Why you didn’t order roti canai?” I said.
“If I miss Malaysian food, there’s an Acehnese restaurant in Jakarta that serves roti canai and goat curry that taste similar to Malaysian cooking,” he said.
The 48-year-old Singapore-born mujahideen has an extensive militant resume.
He studied at the Afghanistan Mujahidin Military Academy in a refugee camp in Pakistan from 1987 to 1990. He fought the Russians in the Afghanistan war.
He trained Moro and JI fighters at Camp Hudaybiyah in the mountainous jungles in Mindanao from 1994 to 1996.
He was JI’s regional chief of Mantigi III (Sabah, Sarawak, Kalimantan, Brunei, Sulawesi and southern Philippines).
His sisters – “pure coincidence,” he said – are married to JI militants. Faridah to 2002 Bali bombings mastermind Mukhlas and Nurhayati to Shamsul Bahri Hussein.
In 1998, JI ordered him to go to Sandakan in Sabah to set up a smuggling route for Indonesian JI to go to southern Philippines through Sabah. As the JI did not pay him a salary, he sold soya drinks and vegetables at the market.
He was married to a Sabahan of Bugis descent, whom he met in a boarding school in Johor operated by JI and married in 1997.
Nasir and his family left for Indonesia as the Malaysian authorities were looking for him in 2002. That was the last time he was on Malaysian soil.
“Do you want to return home?” I asked.
“I have already anticipated that you will ask that question. Of course, I am very homesick,” he said.
But Nasir is worried that his return would make his former JI friends feel uncomfortable: “They might have disagreed with my decision to quit JI because terror operations (like bombing innocent civilians) are not jihad.”
If he did return, the ex-militant hoped the Malaysian Government would forgive his past and he could help to de-radicalize militants in his home country.
“The important thing is to do program to spread peace and give counter-narratives based on my experience and knowledge,” he said.
In 2003, Nasir was arrested by Indonesian security forces in Bekasi near Jakarta. He was jailed 10 months for living illegally in Indonesia. Later on, he helped security forces hunt down JI militants and de-radicalize those who were in Indonesian jails.
“With the fall of Raqqa, what will happen to the Malaysian Islamic State (IS) militants?” I asked.
“Probably they will go to the Philippines to join the fight there. These people are already familiar with battle; they will want to go to another battleground,” he said.
But the Malaysian militants will not be heading to Marawi City, as the IS fighters have fled the battleground which they held for almost five months.
Some of the Marawi City fighters, he said, probably fled to a thick mountainous jungle which used to be his training ground.
“The area around Camp Hudaybiyah is a suitable place. I know as I used to stay there,” he said.
From Camp Hudaybiyah, it is a six-hour hike to Lanao lake and a 40-minute boat ride to Marawi City.
“Who is Amin Baco?” I asked, referring to the militant from Tawau who, the Philippines police claim, is probably the IS emir for South-East Asia.
“It doesn’t make sense. He can’t be the IS emir of South-East Asia,” he said.
There can’t be an IS emir for South-East Asia, according to him, as there are many militant groups in this region and IS is an unstructured organization, unlike JI.
“How can you tell JAD (Jamaah Ansharut Daulah) headed by Aman Abdurrahman (who is in prison) that he is under the command of someone in the Philippines? They stand up for themselves and they do what IS in Syria tells them to do,” he said.
Nasir believed there will be another IS or militant group attack on a town or areas in the Philippines.
Right now the militants, he said, had many casualties so they will need time to prepare for another operation.
“I used to be with these southern Philippines separatist militants; I know how they think. Marawi City was not the first time and it will not be the last time,” he said.
The next day, as promised by Nasir, someone sent his book, Inside Jamaah Islamiyah: A Former Member’s True Story, to the hotel where I was staying in Jakarta.
The book gives an insight into the mind of a militant. It also argues against the use of violence as a valid means to achieve a purpose.
*The former mujahideen is now the face behind Indonesia’s fight against terrorism.
