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The Big Read: At Singapore’s doorstep, a toxic cocktail of apathy and lax security

SINGAPORE — It was chilling news that would ordinarily rock a community: Suspected terror plotters living in your midst who are believed to have links to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (IS), have weapons, and want to launch a rocket attack — on Marina Bay.

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SINGAPORE — It was chilling news that would ordinarily rock a community: Suspected terror plotters living in your midst who are believed to have links to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (IS), have weapons, and want to launch a rocket attack — on Marina Bay.

Not so on Batam. Earlier this week, days after they witnessed elite counterterror forces bundling away neighbours who allegedly harboured insidious plans, residents were back to living their normal lives.

When quizzed on their nonchalance, the residents of each of the five neighbourhoods where the five suspects who were arrested last week for a plot against Singapore lived were either complacent about the threat, or had blind faith that nothing would go wrong.

“Life still continues, things are normal ... Batam is still safe. The police and the government will make sure it is safe,” said Mr Eddy, a 66-year-old retiree who, like many Indonesians, goes by only one name. He lives across the road from one of the suspects, Trio Syafrido, at Komplek Masyeba.

Mr Haruna Hashim, who leads a congregation of more than 1,000 at Masjid Jabal Arafah, said he did not consider the spread of terrorism a probable threat. “I don’t think it is a big problem ... We will still do things the same way.”

The indifference among Batam residents to terrorism brewing in their backyard spells danger for the Republic, which is already on high alert.

Security analysts noted that as a transit hub for IS aspirants and with security levels that leave much to be desired, Batam, which is less than 20km south of Singapore, makes an ideal base from which to launch an attack on the Republic.

S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) senior adjunct fellow Bilveer Singh said stemming the growth of extremism in Batam would require the Indonesian government to step up its counterterror measures.

“Despite Indonesia’s talk of having invested in deradicalisation programmes, the Batam incident shows just how much more needs to be done,” he added. “ ... We hope that after the discovery of the cell, there may be improvements, but the culture of complacency is hard to change.”

A DANGEROUS APATHY

The men nabbed last Friday (Aug 5) — six were initially arrested, but one was freed shortly after — are allegedly part of a terror cell called Katibah GR, which is said to have links to Bahrun Naim. Bahrun has been blamed for masterminding the shopping mall bomb attack in central Jakarta earlier this year.

The group was allegedly led by Gigih Rahmat Dewa, 31. The others arrested were Trio Syafrido, 46; Eka Saputra, 35; Tarmidzi, 21; and Hadi Gusti Yanda, 20. All of them worked at electronics factories in Batam except for Trio, who is reportedly a bank executive.

No rockets were found at their homes, but other weapons were, including a bow-and-arrow set, an air rifle and airsoft guns. To tamp down suspicion, the group used replica guns to conduct weapons-handling training, and held their sessions in an open field near one of their housing estates in Nongsa district.

Although the authorities have stepped up patrols and anti-terror raids, most of the dozens of residents in these neighbourhoods interviewed by TODAY earlier this week did not even know about the arrests. They also did not seem to think it was a cause for concern, whether for themselves or others.

Mr Socrates, 31, a sailor who lived three houses from the group’s alleged ringleader, Gigih, said: “Batam is still very safe ... I don’t think terrorists will do anything in Batam.”

Ms Warda, who lives along the same street as Eka and Tarmidzi, assured TODAY that Singapore need not worry about attacks, saying: “Don’t worry. Many people in Batam work in Singapore, so the government here has to keep Singapore safe.”

Such nonchalance could be partly due to the fact that the bulk of the population comprises immigrants from other provinces who have come in search of jobs and a better life.

“Most people are here to work. They care more about making a living. Nobody in Batam really reads the news,” a translator told TODAY.
Religious leaders, too, are impervious to the threat.

Kyai Usman Ahmad, director of the city’s top clerical body, Majelis Ulama Indonesia (Batam), expressed confidence that the authorities have the situation under control. “Batam has many industries, so the government will protect it ... Batam will stay safe. We will give advice to other Muslims to steer clear of terrorism.”

Ust Ridho Amir, a lead preacher at Masjid Raya Batam, the largest mosque in the Riau Archipelago, told TODAY he sees no need to change what is preached from the pulpit or to convey any anti-terror messages.

“I would not change anything ... What I teach is something very, very beneficial for pilgrims (and) extremely consistent with the values of humanity,” he added.

Professor Singh from RSIS warned that their confidence may be misplaced. “With strategic land (in Batam) being occupied by foreigners, relations between locals and foreigners are never always cordial. This may imbue complacency that (the locals) will not be a target except in the collateral sense, but if others are, that is their problem,” said Prof Singh, who has been researching Indonesia for the past 36 years. “There is the feeling (among the Indonesians) that our people will not hurt us,” he added.

Mr Jasminder Singh, senior analyst with the RSIS’ International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, said: “An obvious source of local terrorism motivation can be the highly visible foreign presence in Batam, be it tourism or industrial development.”

RSIS head of policy studies Kumar Ramakrishna, who has authored several books on radicalisation in Indonesia, cautioned that the recent arrests show that extremists in Indonesia may be thinking bigger.

“The discovery of the Katibah GR cell raises the issue of how extensive the network really is ... If (launching an attack on Singapore) is seen as no longer tenable (because of higher scrutiny), then attempts to mount opportunistic attacks on Singaporeans and other foreign tourists on Batam also cannot be ruled out,” he said.

INSUFFICIENT SECURITY?

Indonesian authorities have long been criticised for lax monitoring of terrorists released from prison, and recidivism rates are known to be high.

For instance, Harry Kuncoro, cellmate and personal assistant of radical Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, was sentenced to six years behind bars in 2011. But he was released in April this year, two years early, even though prison officials deemed that he was still “high-risk” and in an “unstable” condition.

In 2013, the Indonesian National Counterterrorism Agency said that 25 out of 300 terrorists released from prison had “gone back to their old terror habits”. Two of the four men who mounted suicide bombings in Jakarta in January this year, for example, had previously served jail time for terrorism-related offences.

Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam has highlighted, on several occasions, the lack of adequate security legislation in Indonesia — a point their national police have also acknowledged.

At the Home Team leaders’ forum in March this year, Mr Shanmugam said: “The Indonesians have said that they will strengthen the legislation, but that is going to take time. And until that is done, there is a big lacuna. What does that mean? It’s not a crime in Indonesia if you want to join IS. It is not a crime if you have violent tendencies.”

While some analysts have described what happened in Batam as a “wake-up call”, that message seemed to have been lost on most grassroots and religious leaders TODAY spoke to. Few said they had concrete plans to step up security or raise awareness of terrorism to the locals.

Mr Muhrijan, a block leader at Gigih’s neighbourhood, said he would be conducting household surveys to “obtain necessary information” of residents. “So that everybody knows more about each other ... We did not know much about Gigih,” he said, describing the 31-year-old as someone who “keeps to himself”.

But over in Cluster Sakura Botania, a relatively new neighbourhood, grassroots leaders have not yet been appointed, residents said. Going by some residents’ accounts, plainclothes police officers have been seen in their neighbourhoods regularly since the arrests.

Whether that is enough remains to be seen. At the ferry terminal in Batam, security appeared relatively lax, with visitors breezing through immigration counters in under a minute.

At some of the neighbourhoods where the suspects lived, such as Carina Park Complex and Komplek Taman Indah Batuaji, the security posts were unmanned.

Asked for updates on the arrests, officers at the police headquarters for the Riau Archipelago in Nongsa, which is in north-eastern Batam, said Densus 88, Indonesia’s elite counter-terror squad, was wholly in charge of investigations.

Another factor in play is the fact that national authorities are focusing their security efforts on conventional “terror hotbeds” like Central Java and Sulawesi, giving radicals the space to operate in “backwater areas”, said Prof Singh. “The vacuum of security operations in Batam has been a boon for radicals,” he added.

STRATEGIC GEOGRAPHY

Batam’s geographical proximity and economic ties with Singapore also make it an ideal base for an attack on the Republic, some analysts said. The island is known to be a transit hub for militants travelling around the region, often before they head to the Middle East.

Earlier this year, in the wake of the deportation of four followers of radical ideologue Aman Abdurrahman from Singapore, Riau provincial police chief Brigadier-General Sambudi Gusdian acknowledged that the porous borders of the Riau Islands provide terrorists and smugglers easy opportunities for transit.

Noting that Batam has many forested areas where training camps can be set up or operated under the radar, Prof Kumar said: “Recruits can come from all over Indonesia, or even the wider region. The fact that Singapore has long been seen by JI (Jemaah Islamiyah, the militant group) and its offshoots as an iconic target is another reason Batam has assumed greater strategic significance in the campaign against IS and its regional affiliates.”

Apart from Batam, analysts cited other Riau islands frequented by Singaporeans, such as Bintan and Karimun, as possible launch pads. Cities along the border have become strategically important for extremists, said Prof Singh, as they are “away from Jakarta, and are where people think there is little or no radical activity”.

But Batam, in particular, has seen terror-related activities brewing for some time now, said the analysts, pointing to the Christmas Eve bombings in 2000. That night, simultaneous attacks on more than 25 churches in 11 cities — including Jakarta, Bandung, Batam and Medan — killed at least 16 people and injured more than 100, most of them Christians attending services.

“These things don’t happen overnight. The jihadists in Indonesia are not a monolith group ... Singapore is definitely a high-priority target, but since (the extremists) have not gotten their act together, we have been spared so far,” said Prof Singh.

“For me, it is not that they failed that is important. Even more important is the fact that the group strategically and operationally thought of a way to hurt Singapore,” he added.

With the authorities warning that remnants of the Katibah GR terror cell are still at large in Batam, the apathy or complacency among the Batam population presents a dangerous proposition.

Said Prof Kumar: “They may well take advantage of the relative lack of alertness on Batam at the moment to hatch new plots, which is a potential risk that I hope the relevant authorities have factored into their analysis.”

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