1

John M MacDougall

Doctoral Candidate

Anthropology Department

Princeton University

Sisyphus’s Stone in Fragments: Darul Islam from the 1980’s

to the Present

Working paper No. 176 November 2014

The views presented in this paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Asia Research

Centre or Murdoch University. Working papers are considered draft publications for critical comments by

colleagues and will generally be expected to be published elsewhere in a more polished form after a period of critical

engagement and revision. Comments on this paper should be directed to the author at telagatanpawarih@gmail.com

Copyright is held by the author(s) of each working paper: No part of this publication may be republished, reprinted

or reproduced in any form without the permission of the paper’s author(s).

National Library of Australia.

ISSN: 1037-4612

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Sisyphus’s Stone in Fragments: Darul Islam from the 1980’s to the Present

By John M. MacDougall

Doctoral Candidate

Anthropology Department

Princeton University

Introduction: The Shifting Parameters of Struggle

The 1980’s introduced a new mode of militant organization in Darul Islam. First, the arrest

of DI’s Imam and senior leaders from 1979-1982 resulted in a shift from a strictly structural

model of Regional Command heads and subordinates to become a multitude of “ring” and

“cell”-based groupings. Each of these mini-groups drew upon and developed a variety of

ideological influences and revolutionary outlooks. As a result, recruitment strategies and

methods underwent important changes with long-term consequences. Before the execution

of Imam Kartosuwiryo in 1962, Darul Islam or NII (Negara Islam Indonesia) consisted of a

combination of military fighters and constitutional bureaucrats. After DI’s reigning elders

were rounded up and sent to prison (1979-1982) the old DI militancy remained but its

military approach towards an Islamist revolution were replaced with a new form of

scripturalist radicalism. Under the watchful eye of Indonesia’s intelligence institutions,

radical scripturalists, and not militant radicals, predominated in subsequent generations. A

less influential group of intellectual idealists, called Presda (Presidium Daerah: Regional

Presidium) also came on to the scene in the late 1980’s to introduce quasi-parliamentary

models for the implementation of syari’at law in Indonesia. Some of these influences appear

to be organized by emergent ideologies in international Islam while others continued to

reflect continuities with “DI tradition”.

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Why the emergent dogmatism of DI’s new leaders? One possibility might be that, in

previous periods, DI always had exact enemies and sympathetic allies in the Indonesian

armed forces and intelligence institutions. In the early DI period (1949-1962) if DI wasn’t

fighting the Dutch, is was fighting members of the communist party in West Java. In later

periods, DI fought Sukarno’s Republican Army but did so with the assistance of

PRRI/Permesta rebels or pro-Dutch mercenaries. Later, when DI resisted Suharto’s New

Order government (1974-1982) it did so with the assistance of its allies in Indonesian

intelligence institutions with whom they had built relations during the 1965 massacres of

Indonesia’s suspected communists. After DI’s elders were jailed for their involvement in

Komando Jihad (1976-1982), however, the movement simply possessed no government-

based allies to their struggle. Suharto’s intelligence institutions were now rooted firmly

against DI’s development as a counter-State movement. As a result, religious ideology, and

not a clearly defined enemy, motivated Darul Islam’s recruitment. Although these ideologies

existed in the past, the constitutional and national legitimacy of the jihad is what defined

DI’s previous struggles. The revolutionary formula was Iman, Hijrah and Jihad under

Kartosuwiryo. This changed in the 1980’s. DI was no longer a band of village-based militias

and territorial commands. Instead it had become an assemblage of loosely connected and

semi-autonomous intellectual groupings based less in Indonesia’s villages than in its cities.

International Islam, and not the national struggle for an Indonesian Islamic State, had also

managed to fill the political vacuum DI’s imprisoned senior leadership once occupied.

Ikhwanul Muslimin in Egypt, The Iranian Revolution and the anti-Soviet Jihad in Afghanistan

now drew Islamic intellectuals and youth leaders to imagine a new futuristic pan-Islamic

Union of nations or Khilafah where Islamic ideas, not merely localized Islamic nations,

defined social action. To new recruits, ideological radicalism, as opposed to armed struggle,

became their primary weapon and goal. Kartosuwiryo’s physical Hijrah was no longer the

physical relocation of a revolutionary Islamic community but rather had become Hijrah

Nafsi, an internal distancing of oneself from the sinful masses.1

1 Hijrah Nafsi is a form of resistance against sinful action that cannot be done through mere physical

strength or power.

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National Pressures, Internal Fragmentation and International Impetus

Structural weaknesses and conflicts between DI’s senior leaders helped to galvanize

ideological transformations among DI’s second-tier youth leaders during the 1980’s. The

imprisonment of DI’s senior military leaders forced them to appoint “provisional Imam and

regional commanders” to serve in their stead. In 1987, for instance, an ad hoc Syuro Council

elected Ajengan Masduki provisional Imam over DI’s shattered network of ‘rings’ and ‘cells’.

Even prior to Ajengan Masduki’s “Imamship”, former General Head of High Command

(KUKT), Abdul Fatah Wiranagapati, elected Emeng Abdurahman to be a “temporary Imam of

sorts” while Abdul Fatah stewed in prison. Although this was only the beginning of what

would become the “era of many Imams” it was also a reflection of DI’s scattered structure

of underground militants and contested leaders.

Within Darul Islam there was an important exodus of subordinate DI leaders to Malaysia.

Abdullah Sungkar of Yogyakarta’s regional command, KW-2, fled Indonesia with Abubakar

Ba’asyir and an entourage of students to develop his own following in Malaysia. Although

Abdullah Sungkar’s flight was largely to avoid a jail sentence for his involvement in the

underground Usroh movement, he re-defined his flight from Indonesia as a hijrah or a

positive continuation of DI’s historical struggle. Abdullah Sungkar’s home in Negeri-Sembilan

Malaysia served as a basis for DI militants fleeing Sulawesi, Central Java and Jakarta. From

his hijrah hide-out in Malaysia, he became a leader of considerable importance to DI and,

after Ajengan Masduki was elected Imam in 1987, both Abdullah Sungkar and Abubakar

Ba’asyir were made ministers in his government. Through coordination with Sungkar’s

Indonesian network, particularly the Jakarta-based “Condet Ring”, Sungkar began to send DI

militants to mujahiddin training camps in Pakistan and, later, Afghanistan. Despite his

subordinate position to Ajengan Masduki, Abdullah Sungkar’s shipments to Afghanistan

continued to favor his own students from Central Java over a “random sampling” of DI

militants from Sulawesi or the DI heartland of West Java. By favoring his own students,

Sungkar laid the foundation for counter-DI scripturalism over and against the more

doctrinally permissive DI leadership.

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Despite Ajengan Masduki’s work with Sungkar to integrate DI within a greater international

Islamic movement, internally, DI was slow to re-define itself. One of the reasons for this

reticence was Suharto’s courts and intelligence institutions found DI’s regional command

structures to be evidence of a desire to subvert State rule. Therefore, after the Komando

Jihad and NII arrests of the 1970’s and 1980’s, DI’s leaders continued to lead regional

structures but only operated through smaller “Rings” or “Cell” networks. For instance,

Abdullah Sungkar’s Yogyakarta regional command was forced to migrate to Jakarta in the

early 1980’s when Yogyakarta intelligence bodies began investigating the Usroh movement.

After migrating to Jakarta they referred to themselves as “Poros Yogya” or the Yogya axis.

Poros referred to a group that had migrated from one region to another but remained

within the structural coordination of their home command.

The small and relatively insignificant Poros Yogya grew in Jakarta and was later referred to

as a “Ring”. Rings consist of several “cells” or stelsel. The heads of these various cells

recruited and ordained new radicals as they preached throughout Jakarta’s various

neighborhoods. In order to protect the structural identity of their cell new recruits were

forbidden to use their real names or to inform other members of their bio-data and only the

head of the cell communicated with Ring leadership.

The new form of bottom-up and not explicitly top-down authority transformed the

Kartosuwiryo’s theory of revolutionary development. New “turf” commands grew out of

multiple groupings of thugs, preachers and sons-of-DI. For instance, Sungkar’s “Yogya Axis”

became the Condet Ring named after the Condet area in Jakarta where it was based. After

its various cells were well established, Condet developed its own structural command

throughout the city. Once Condet’s leaders had implemented their own infak system of

taxation and doctrinal training, the Condet Ring became a KD or Provincial Command

complete with an intelligence branch, a treasury and a civilian government.

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The highest operational authority rest with the provincial command head or KD even though

the KD command continued to take structural orders from their KW or Area Commander,

Saleh Sungkar. For instance, in the case of the Condet Ring, Abdullah Sungkar remained the

strategic commander of the group even though he was in Malaysia. Muchliansyah alias

Solihin served as Abdullah Sungkar’s doctrinal deputy in Jakarta but was not directly

involved in the structural management of the KD. Therefore, Abdullah Sungkar maintained

control over the direction of the KD but had little control over its operations. For instance,

when Abdullah Sungkar ordered that DI militants be sent to Malaysia and Pakistan for

military training in the late 1980’s, he used the Jakarta KD network to fund and facilitate

their papers and departures. In this way, Abdullah Sungkar was able to order his

“structural” network in Central Java to send mujahiddin to his “poros” command in Jakarta.

Both the Jakarta KD and the Solo student network were equal parts of the Abdullah

Sungkar’s KW-2 Yogya command structure, only neither group was aware of the other’s

operational activities.

During this time of Poros, Rings and Cells, several of DI’s regional commands migrated to

urban centers resulting in overlapping commands, DI traditions and ideological functions.

Condet, to illustrate the example we know best, was not the only DI command operating in

Jakarta. Most notably, Regional Command-9 or KW-9 remained the official Darul Islam

command for Jakarta. Established by Imam Adah Jaelani prior to his arrest in 1982, KW-9

was lead by Darul Islam “blue bloods”. Their operations were conservative and their outlook

was primarily constitutional (abided to the DI constitution).

They had little contact with the Condet group and its new gang of recruits. In fact, when

intelligence officers tracked down KW-9 cells in the early to mid-1980’s, KW-9 arrests were

not referred to as KOMJI after the Komando Jihad operations in the late 1970’s nor were

they linked to Sungkar’s Usroh movement identified with Condet. Instead, they were called

the “NII operations” for Negara Islam Indonesia (NII). Unlike the Komando Jihad military

operatives, KW-9’s operatives had done little to invite suspicion. Many of them worked in

elite businesses and even held government jobs. In fact, in my interviews with Jakarta’s KW-

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9 leaders active during the early1980’s, one leader said that his greatest regret was that he

had been dishonorably dismissed from his job at a foreign bank. He saw himself a DI elite

and his outlook differed dramatically from Jakarta’s Condet radicals and Abdullah Sungkar’s

born-again fundamentalists in Malaysia. Instead of initiating new forms of radical

scripturalism, KW-9 had little knowledge of other groups’ activities and continued to

operate according to the mandate of their Imam and founder, Adah Jaelani. In fact, many of

them remain loyal to him to this day. In this sense both “old” and “new school” Darul Islam

ideologies ran side by side in Jakarta during the 1980’s. KW-9’s legitimacy came from its

heritage and connections to archaic structures while Condet recruited from Jakarta’s riff-raff

and legitimized its movement through new, futuristic, forms of ideological militancy and

“trainings”.

DI Goes International: Overlapping Structures and Overlapping Imams

DI’s structure became even more confusing in the mid-1980’s when the imprisoned Adah

Jaelani made Ajengan Masduki (a Kartosuwiryo loyalist and ulama) his provisional Imam.

Important developments were unfolding in the Islamic world. For instance, as of July 1985

Abdullah Sungkar began sending mujahiddin to Afghanistan. With its senior leadership in

prison, DI required the legitimacy of an elected and proper Imam. Because Ajengan’s Imam

Status was provisional and weak, in 1987, Ajengan Masduki decided to strengthen his

authority and, to this end, called together an assemblage of regional command leaders. At a

meeting held in Selat Panjang, Lampung South Sumatra Ajengan’s made those attending the

meeting into his official Syuro Council, a council capable of electing him DI’s official Imam.

Once elected Imam, Ajengan Masduki quickly appointed the Malaysia-based Abdullah

Sungkar his Foreign Minister and Abubakar Ba’asyir into his Minister of Justice.

Abdullah Sungkar had already made trips to Rabbitah Al Islami in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan

to secure funds for a future jihad in Indonesia. The Afghan leadership suggested, however,

that Indonesian mujahiddin be sent to Afghanistan before purchasing weapons they didn’t

know how to use. After Ajengan Masduki’s Imam-status was secure, he visited Pakistan with

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Abdullah Sungkar himself and proceeded to send more DI militants to be trained there.

Abdullah Sungkar appointed one of his Malaysia-based loyalists, Zulkarnaen, to serve as his

envoy for the placement of Indonesian mujahiddin in the Peshawar camps. Meanwhile

several of Sungkar’s students from Yogyakarta and Solo Central Java served as Arabic-

Indonesian interpreters for the instruction of Indonesia’s new mujahiddin. Once in Pakistan,

Indonesia’s mujahiddin took their orders from senior Indonesian mujahiddin, Hamzah and

worked closely with Rabittah al Islami and the Red Cross. While there, they met with other

mujahiddin from Kashmir, Iran and Hashim Selamat’s men from the MILF’s movement in the

Southern Phillipines. For most of Indonesia’s militants there, it was an opportunity to

explore Islam’s many faces. Several generations sent to Afghanistan in the mid to late 1980’s

acquired some battle experience but very few mujahiddin were active soldiers in the anti-

Soviet struggle. As many later discovered, the struggle in Afghanistan was as much a matter

of defeating the Soviets as it was an effort to convert Islamic militants to a more concerted

and Salafist form of ideological struggle. For instance, Sungkar strictly forbade any flirtation

with Syiah schools available in Iran and several mujahiddin were disavowed upon their

return to Malaysia for their relationships with Iranian mujahiddin operating in Pakistan.

In part to facilitate the easy shipment of mujahiddin, Abdullah Sungkar’s Condet Ring was

subsumed beneath the authority of Ajengan Masduki’s new command structure. While

Ajengan Masduki’s command included DI’s first and original KW-1 command in West Java it

had little bearing on Jakarta’s KW-9 network of Adah Jaelani loyalists. For this reason KW-9

stood alone without any significant role in the international mujahiddin movements of

Afghanistan or Moro. So, as Ajengan Masduki attempted to further formalize DI’s

fragmented network of Rings and Cells, the Jakarta network was no longer considered a

Poros or sub-branch of the Yogjakarta command but was placed instead under the guidance

of the original regional command, KW-1 of West Java. So, in addition to Abdul Fatah

Wiranagapati’s petty claims to Imam status in Tasik Malaya-West Java there were two

other, contending Imam commands controlled by Adah Jaelani and Ajengan Masduki

respectively. Things were getting complicated, to say the least.

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Counter-Revolutionary Revolutionaries: DI’s preman Youth

There were other developments in mid-1980’s Bandung-West Java and Jakarta as well. The

aforementioned network of “rings” and “cells” also meant that small groups could develop

with their own specific agendas separate from Condet or the structurally coordinated DI

commands of KW-9 Jakarta or KW-1 in West Java. The members of these groups were often

young, and ideologically motivated. They were impatient with the long-term and quasi-

messianic program of DI’s senior leadership. The Salman Mosque of Bandung and the

Regional Presidium network (Presda), for instance, developed intellectual groupings within

the broader framework of DI’s struggle without fully accepting the constitutional tenets of

DI’s historical struggle. Although these groups continued to rely upon Kartosuwiryo’s

revolutionary formula of Iman, Hijrah and Jihad, without a structural command they were

able to redefine DI revolutionary formula to suite their own purposes.

For instance, several members of the Abdullah Sungkar’s Condet group in Jakarta decided to

leave what they felt was the staid atmosphere of Abdullah Sungkar’s puritans. One of the

most notorious among this group was Nur Hidayat. Not only was he not a puritan but also

he was a renowned martial artist and street-smart tough. His friends were semi-reformed

thugs who wanted to create a more aggressively radical version of the Condet group.

Beginning in 1996, they did just that.

One of the exit points for his new action-based approach to militancy was to re-interpret or

infuse Kartosuwiryo’s Hijrah ideology with more flexibility to meet the most inflexible state

watching their every move. Nur Hidayat argued that Hijrah was too strictly defined among

DI’s senior leadership. True, Hijrah, even according to Kartosuwiryo, could be interpreted

not only as a physical movement but also as a shift in conceptual orientation towards

militant Islamic activism.(footnote). To Nur Hidayat and his followers, hijrah meant a life

change, a counter-conventional shift in ideological practice. A physical or spatial Hijrah

was required only if the Islamic community was threatened by an invading or superior force.

The interpretation of Hijrah and Jihad as counter-cultural, and not exclusively counter-State,

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appealed to many of Nur Hidayat’s followers who had only recently become acquainted

with Islamic knowledge as a libratory way of live. In fact, many of them were former part-

time thugs or “preman”.

In order to understand Condet and, in fact, Indonesia and the Condet ring’s sudden success

one must also understand the security environment in early 1980’s Indonesia (and Nur

Hidayat’s group). As part of an effort to control violent crime in urban Indonesia, from 1983

to 1985 intelligence chief Benny Moerdani waged a violent war on crime and thugs or, as

they are more popularly known, preman. Through an attack method Suharto would later call

“shock therapy” the military either killed or disposed of preman’s bodies in public places.

Suharto’s killing campaigns were called Petrus or “mysterious killings”. As a result of

Suharto’s spectacles of public assassination, crime decreased radically and many of Jakarta’s

former gang members fled military attack teams by joining state-backed youth organizations

such as Pemuda Pancasila. One rarely mentioned side effect of the Petrus campaigns is that

many former gangsters also masuk mesjid or “found religion” to avoid Petrus attack squads.

Among those hunted were petty gangsters such Nur Hidayat and several other “streetwise”

Condet members. In fact, before joining Sungkar’s Condet ring they referred to themselves

as “preman Santa” or Santa gangsters after the Santa market where they ran parking and

petty-extortion ventures. It should come as no surprise that Nur Hidayat and his minions

were eventually disenchanted with the exclusive orthodoxy of Abdullah Sungkar and his

followers. Nevertheless, Hidayat’s combination of “street creds” and inspirational rhetoric

drew several thousand youth to Jakarta’s urban command structure only a few years after it

was established. In an interview Nur Hidayat told me, “I wore my jean jacket and street

outfit and carried nothing else but a copy of the Al’Quoran. We would preach with our

machetes tucked in our belts. We were always on the run, always preaching and this is what

drew so many recruits to our cause.” Despite their success at integrating Jakarta’s urban

toughs into Sungkar’s Condet ring, Nur Hidayat left Condet in 1985.

During the same year as Nur Hidayat’s departure from Condet, Suharto’s government

passed the “Asas Tunggal” or “Single Principle” ruling forcing all groups, muslim or not, to

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acknowledge the state ideology of Panca-sila as their organization’s grounding principle.

Most Islamic organizations resented or outright rejected the Asas Tunggal laws. This ruling

also created a clear dividing line between Muslims willing to cooperate with the State and

“non-cooperative” Muslim organizations. At the same time International Islamist

movements had never been stronger. The Iranian revolution, the Mujahiddin resistance

against the Soviet Union and Quutb’s intellectual and armed resistance against Egyptian

moderates created a multi-national front separating not just the West from the Islamic East

but also dividing “cooperative” or regime-friendly Muslims from their more militant

organizations.

Nur Hidayat left Condet and began studying with another, somewhat more egalitarian,

religious teacher, Suleiman Mahmud. Mahmud possessed his own group of Muslim toughs

and radical thugs operating up in North Jakarta. Unlike Sungkar, he understood the

rebellious world Hidayat and his men inhabited and helped create a more flexible theology

to accommodate their movement. Hidayat also began running his own set of Fa’i or “war

bounty” schemes to steal from the enemy to further enrich his movement. Drawing from his

band of born-again gangsters Nur Hidayat’s group performed a number of high-profile

violent crimes. Two of his followers were particularly destructive but defected from Nur

Hidayat to return to Sungkar’s Condet group. Sungkar was overjoyed at the bravado of the

two toughs. Without appropriate supervision, however, they became reckless and were

arrested for their involvement in increasingly violent crimes. Both men confessed their

ties to the Condet group to the investigating officers. As a result several of Jakarta’s DI

leaders were arrested while others moved underground, fled to Malaysia or were put

behind bars.

Hidayat’s group grew despite the constant pressure from the security forces. Through their

group of radical Islamists and gangsters they attempted to establish a larger, more DI based,

network of affiliations. In 1988 and early 1989, Hidayat’s group of disenchanted Condet

supporters moved to Cibinong-Talangsari-Lampung in South Sumatra to establish an Islamic

commune of their own. They also called DI’s youth activists in the Jakarta area to participate

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in meetings where they criticized the divisive quibbling among DI’s senior leadership. In

order to reconstruct an authoritative structure for revolutionary resistance, Nur Hidayat was

elected Amir of the new movement while his deputy, Usman, was made deputy Amir or

Quotib.

Starting on 23 February 1989, Nur Hidayat and his network sent its militants to DI areas

throughout Indonesia to at once win the blessings of DI elders and reign in new young

recruits. Wahidin went northeast after Bardan Kindarto in Palembang Sumatra. Riduan

Jasari went northwest in search of Gaus Taufik in Aceh and Medan. Darsono went East to

find Ali AT in Sulawesi while Fauzi went to Bima in West Nusatenggara. Usman left for

Central Java and Nur Hidayat met with the DI leadership in West Java. Despite all of these

exhaustive efforts to re-unite Darul Islam’s increasingly factionalized senior leadership,

Hidayat’s group failed miserably. In fact, only the West Nusatenggara and Jakarta-based

groups were successfully recruited to undergo religious “trainings” in Jakarta. Again these

“trainings” did not prepare men to fight but were designed to educate recruits in counter-

State Islamic criticism. Targeting the military, the state ideology of Pancasila and counter-

Islamic legislation passed by Suharto’s government these trainings were subversive in

content but little more than that.

At the same time, Hidayat’s group also succeeded in recruiting university students. They

held “trainings” and bai’at initiations at the Al’Fallah mosque in Surabaya, Akademi Statistik

in Jakarta and the Salman Mosque of the Bandung Technological Institute. Recruits

perceived as having the right credentials were initiated with a bai’at to the revolutionary

cause. Again, Hidayat’s group chose not to use the hierarchical “bai’at” of Darul Islam but

instead developed their own kerja sama or egalitarian bai’at. Despite all their efforts, a

conflict with local military authorities in Lampung resulted in the death of a solider and

heavy military retaliation killing over 200 people in Hidayat’s new Islamic commune in

Cihideung-South Sumatra. Intelligence agents sought out Hidayat and nearly his entire

network. Once caught, they were arrested, tortured and held at “Kramat 7” otherwise

known as “Dead End lane” in Central Jakarta. Lucky for DI leadership, Hidayat’s fragmented

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network of “rings” and “cells” prevented DI leadership from being caught in yet another

rash of arrests. Hidayat’s Jakarta and Lampung network went down on its own.

Sectarian Schisms in the Ring and Cell Paradigm

The Lampung massacre and mass imprisonment of Hidayat’s group did prove one thing: The

“Ring” and “Cell” approach to DI’s underground movement helped to limit the scope of

arrests. In some ways the Ring-Cell network protected DI militants but it also allowed for

intra-DI conflicts to persist and eat away at the integrity of the struggle. This was most

apparent when DI’s senior leaders were released from prison in the early 1990’s. While this

should have been a time to rediscover a shared unity, DI was falling apart along the very

fault lines that should have married it to the Islamist movement world-wide.

For instance, many of Abdullah Sungkar’s Afghan graduates returned from Afghanistan as

changed men. Although they continued to serve DI, their experiences in Afghanistan and

later Malaysia bound them more firmly to a Salafist and exclusivist stance towards proper

Islamic praxis and ritual. From 1990 to 1993, in fact, Abdullah Sungkar and his ex-Afghan

militants in Malaysia identified themselves as Jemaah Islamiyah while they referred to their

manhaj or method as Salafi Solehin or Salafi Loyalists.2 By 1991, Abdullah Sungkar and his

Imam, Ajengan Masduki, were no longer on speaking terms. In 1993, Sungkar sent

emissaries from Malaysia to meet with Ajengan Masduki and to communicate his desire to

leave Darul Islam and to establish his own independent network of followers.

The break between Abdullah Sungkar and Ajengan Masduki was not as clean as prevailing

studies of JI would have us think. There were over 350 Afghan graduates whose structural

affiliations would have to be determined before the DI/JI split was to be made official and

2 Salafi Soleh is a worldwide Salafi manhaj or method designed to create conditions and appropriate

methods for struggle, ritual and their ideological foundations in the Al Quoran. The Afghan struggle and subsequent developments in Malaysia and Indonesia have identified with this manhaj over and against existing tarekat or mystical brotherhoods that served Afghani and Indonesian rebellions in the past.

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binding. The Afghan graduates possessed an alumni association, with a leader (Hamzah) and

a hierarchy graded according to seniority.

In order to settle matters of “allegiance” we know of two separate meetings where

the Afghan alumnus of both Darul Islam and Abdullah Sungkar’s camps convened to discuss

their future relationships to both their structural heads and to one another. The first of

these meetings was held in 1993 in Purwokerto while the second was held a year later in

Tawangmangu, Central Java. At both of these meetings, Afghan graduates discussed: 1) How

they were to regard fellow alumnus once the DI/JI split was final; 2) How to use, divide or

redistribute the DI funds and businesses run by Abdullah Sungkar and his network in

Malaysia; and 3) Whether operational coordination between the various graduates,

regardless of their organizational status, could continue or would be subject to their

respective organizational mandates. The Afghan alumni in attendance decided to break into

two separate camps of DI loyalists and Salafi Solehin/Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) followers under

Abdullah Sungkar. Said monies were no longer to be shared with DI graduates or alumnus

but would be used to fund Salafi Solehin/JI programs and training missions. Both groups of

graduates were permitted, however, to conduct joint operations without securing direct

orders from Abdullah Sungkar or Ajengan Masduki.

Among those who remained with Abdullah Sungkar were the Poros Yogya or Yogya Axis

militants who were either affiliated with Sungkar’s network in Central Java or were recruited

into the more orthodox groupings of the Jakarta network. The break was not as clean as

that. Even though the Condet Ring was once organized under Abdullah Sungkar the same

militants had identified with and taken orders from their acting Imam, Ajengan Masduki,

from 1987-1994. During this time they did work to reconsolidate the original KW-1

command operating out of Cianjur, West Java. They developed and trained a military

division, a dakwah campaign and were also able to send DI mujahiddin to Afghanistan and,

later, to Moro in the Southern Phillipines. Many of these militants remained loyal to Ajengan

Masduki and were suspect of Abdullah Sungkar’s ambitions. Shipments to Moro and

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increased ties to DI Sulawesi helped to maintain their sense of a shared DI struggle even

though the majority of their generational cohort had sided with Abdullah Sungkar.

By 1992, Ajengan Masduki visited Moro and created a shipment conduit that would later

help to increase linkages between Sumatra, Sulawesi and, to a lesser extent, Java. The

shipments to Moro revitalized communications between second and third tier militants in

Riau (Malik), Java (Arkom) dan Sulawesi (Syawal) as well. Malik and Arkom were both DI

militants with strong affiliations to Mindanao. Plus, they also assisted with the funding of DI

trainees to Yogyakarta and then on to Moro to fight with the MILF. When the JI and DI

structures split, JI continued to operate through Syawal’s network in Sulawesi while Malik

and Arkom continued to operate within the DI structures of Ajengan Masduki and, later,

Tahmid Kartosuwiryo. Tensions between Arkom and Ajengan Masduki’s command arose,

however, when Arkom moved to Moro in the late 1990’s and developed his own

independent following of Indonesian Mujahiddin. In fact, even though all of the DI

Mujahiddin had already made bai’at oaths to their respective commanders at home, Arkom

insisted that they undergo a bai’at initiation once more to him in Moro. This created further

tensions with DI leaders in Indonesia who were already losing men to JI ranks due to

bickering between rival Imams within DI.

Shipments of DI mujahiddin to Moro were not as well funded as their earlier shipments to

Afghanistan. These shipments were complicated further when Darul Islam and Jemaah

Islamiyah emerged as ideologically and structurally separate networks of mujahiddin. As a

result, JI established its own camp. Oddly, even though Sulawesi remained within DI, it

established its own camp as well. According to DI militants interviewed in 2003 and 2004, DI

had an advantage over these groups because DI’s militants were trained at Abubakar’s base

camp where they helped defend Hassim Slamet’s headquarters, called “The White House”

from attack by the Philippines army. DI’s mujahiddin often stayed at Moro for a year or two

while JI and Sulawesi militants often restricted their training period to a mere six months.

Although DI mujahiddin were not as well funded as JI and Sulawesi groups, they claimed to

16

be better accepted because they learned to speak the local language and were integrated

into the MILF even though they were never given special rank. Meanwhile Sulawesi, under

Ali AT’s tutelage, had become the new send-off site for both Darul Islam and Jemaah

Islamiyah militants. This also increased the strategic importance of Sulawesi as a potential

training zone especially given the broad swath of militants for whom DI’s armed struggle

was not such a distant memory.3 Even though Sulawesi remains a place where the

differences between JI and DI are not as dramatic, Syawal remains loyal to DI commander,

Ali AT and also continues to work closely with JI shipments to Moro. Unfortunately, DI’s

senior leadership was not aware of the important role Moro would play in training the next

generation of DI mujahiddin.

Legitimacy and inter-generational tensions in late New Order DI

By 1995, the majority of DI’s senior leadership had been released from prison. The very

serious problem of leadership was broached almost immediately. Among those considered

for the job were, former Imam, Adah Jaelani, Dodo Kartosuwiryo, Tahmid Kartosuwiryo,

Abdul Fatah Wiranagapati and Ajengan Masduki. There were no easy choices to be made.

Ajengan Masduki was responsible for DI’s growth in international circles but he had also

allowed their greatest asset, Abdullah Sungkar, and the majority of the Afghan graduates, to

secede from DI only to form their own faction, Jemaah Islamiyah.

Each of these candidates for future Imam also had their own weaknesses dating back to the

Kartosuwiryo days. Adah Jaelani, for instance, was among DI’s most important military

commanders in 1962. Imam Kartosuwiryo was captured under his watch, however. Plus,

he was among the first of DI’s commanders to surrender. He was also responsible for

cooperating with Indonesia’s Intelligence head, Ali Moertopo, in the 1970’s; a misjudgment

that resulted in the wholesale arrest and imprisonment of DI’s senior leaders. Also very few

3 Sulawesi’s leading revolutionary and local hero, Kahar Muzakar, was head of the Regional

Command for Eastern Indonesia until his death in 1965. Many of the men who fought with Kahar Muzakar were integrated into the local military command in 1965. Nevertheless, the movement remains fresh in the memories of Sulawesi’s contemporary politicians and DI militants who were able to fight side-by-side with Muzakar.

17

DI officials were willing to forgot how, after electing himself Imam in 1979, he ordered

Special forces (Pasus) militants to assassinate one of DI’s most important civilian leaders,

Jaja Sujaidi. Nevertheless, Adah was the last remaining constitutionally elected Imam. After

Adah was released from prison in 1994, Ajengan Masduki surrendered his men and

structure to Adah. In turn, the sizeable and well organized KW-9 command under Abu

Toto in Jakarta was handed over to Adah as well.

Not everyone was willing to turn everything over to Adah, however. Ajengan Masduki’s

loyalists were unhappy with Adah’s soft feudalism and emphasis on DI blue bloods over

radical recruits. He was old and feeble. Tahmid Kartosuwiryo was also upset with Adah

because of his closeness to the opportunistic and money-oriented wiles of Abu Toto of KW-

9. Tensions rose when Adah forced Tahmid Kartosuwiryo, who was Adah’s General Head of

Staff (Kepala Staff Umum: KSU) at the time, to leave his command. Tahmid formed his own

command, a command counter to Adah’s and with the support of DI intellectual, Fahrul

Rozi. Fahrul Rozi was among the key leaders of the Presidium Daerah (Regional Presidium)

group of DI intellectuals. Throughout the late 1980’s and 1990’s they created a multi-celled

network of underground radicals based in and around the university campuses of Jakarta

and Bandung. Fahrul Rozi and Budi Santoso were the conceptors and leaders of the

movement until Fahrol Rozi decided to side with Tahmid Kartosuwiryo, a gesture which

aligned him with mainstream DI ideology and constitutional rhetoric; a rhetoric he once

criticized with his fellow youth innovators. With Tahmid Kartosuwiryo, however, Fahrul Rozi

was able to implement a non-revolutionary system of coordinators (and not military

commanders), an approach which invited the ire DI’s senior and mid-level military elite.

While Tahmid, Adah Jaelani and Ajengan Masduki vied for the support of Darul Islam’s elite,

its military faction acquired newfound strength in its returnees from Moro and Afghanistan.

To make use of these experienced mujahiddin, Darul Islam established a set of small

brigades. Starting in 1994, for instance, several Moro and Afghan returnees were recruited

to train a set of militants referred to as Korps Cakra Buana. Korps Cakra Buana consisted of a

combination of DI’s Special forces (Pasus) from Adah Jaelani’s command in the early 1980’s

18

and returnees from Afghanistan and Moro training centers. By the late 1990’s, Korps Cakra

Buana was complemented by the Jakarta-based Battalion Abubakar, named after the MILF’s

Abubakar camp in the Southern Phillipines. Among those trained at Korps Cakra Buana was

none other than Kang Jaja, the funder and planner of the Kuningan bombing. Although Darul

Islam’s militants were becoming more powerful and more prepared for military

confrontation with Suharto’s State, its leadership became increasingly fragmented and non-

military in nature.

During DI’s internal battles of the late 1990’s, Suharto stepped down and the economy fell

to ruin. President Habibie replaced Suharto in mid-1998 and granted amnesty to all

prisoners held under Suharto’s Subversion laws. In light of the sudden dangers,

opportunities and freedoms made possible by the fall of Suharto, Darul Islam leaders held

the “Cisarua Meetings” in Bogor-West Java. For the first time in history, Darul Islam could

organize openly and argue for an Islamic State without the threat of recrimination by

government. Nevertheless, DI’s senior leadership was old, most over seventy, and its

military resolve was much worn by decades of torture, betrayal and imprisonment. DI’s

elders gathered at Cisarua to determine not only the future leadership of DI but also

whether they would take on a violent or pacifist approach towards Indonesia’s new

leadership. In attendance were DI’s primary military commanders such as Dodo and Tahmid

Kartosuwiryo from West Java, Gaos Taufik from Sumatra, Ali AT from Sulawesi, Zulkifli from

West Nusatenggara, Fauzi Hasbi Gedong from Aceh, Ajengan Masduki from KW-1 West Java

and a representative from Pattani-Southern Thailand.

Tahmid Kartosuwiryo was, among all the other leaders, the youngest and best prepared for

the Cisarua meetings. Ajengan Masduki had already agreed to surrender his structure of

homegrown and Moro and Afghanistan trainees to the next chosen leader. Tahmid was

Imam Kartosuwiryo’s second to youngest son and already had twenty years of experience

operating under Adah Jaelani’s structural command. As mentioned above, he conveniently

had a falling out with Adah when Adah attempted to elect Abu Toto, commander of KW-9,

Imam. Adah’s support for Abu Toto was neither constitutionally legal nor were there

19

sufficient witnesses to elect Abu Toto. Tahmid was stronger than many of the other senior

leaders, in part, because he possessed the support of the Presda (presidium daerah)

intellectuals gathered under the leadership of Fahrul Rozi. Tahmid’s organizational structure

was clear and intellectual in nature. As a result of Tahmid’s lobby to the various DI factions

prior to the Cisarua meetings Ajengan Masduki was forced to surrender his militant

structure to Tahmid. Even though Tahmid was not militaristic he now had the most powerful

mass of militant manpower in the archipelago. Tahmid lacked any military training and,

unlike the others, he had never fought in the mountains with his father nor did he have any

experience abroad. The influence of Fahrul Rozi and his intellectual group meant that

Tahmid’s network would not take military action. Several among the senior leaders pushed

the West Java leadership to join them in an armed struggle against the government.

Indonesia’s government was weak and it was time to strike. Tahmid’s rationale was to wait

and see. Disgusted by their complacency several of DI’s senior leaders left the meetings. The

Cisarua meetings were supposed to be the first of a three part series where the participants

were to reach a consensus over the nature of their struggle.

DI’s Present Dilemma: Complacent Elders and Second Tier Hawks

The ensuing meetings never happened. Instead, DI became a slow, multi-headed

assemblage of Imams which, oddly enough, mirrored the various developments and dangers

(i.e. multi-party system with multiple vigilante groups, increased freedoms to voice and

assembly) unfolding in Indonesia at the time. Without a centralized government to resist

and with a decidedly sympathetic president in command, Darul Islam’s model of

revolutionary resistance was less than appealing to most. When the conflicts in Ambon

broke out in early 1999 under the new presidency of Abdurahman Wahid, DI underwent a

considerable change. The members of Korps Cakra Buana and Battalion Abubakar were far

from pleased with the results of the Cisarua meetings. Tahmid’s “watchful waiting”

approach to post-Suharto government made many of them despondent. Had they trained

for nothing? Had their efforts throughout the 1990’s been in vain? The sudden violence

against Muslims in areas such as Kupang, Sumba and Ambon in 1998 and 1999 inspired

20

Jakarta’s KW-9 leadership to take a different approach from the prevailing DI leadership.

Under the tutelage of KW-9 leader Mahfud Sidiq, several senior members of KW-9 sent nine

militant members of their Banten militants to Moro. These men would later become

important members of the “Banten group” upon their return. Kang Jaja, director of the

shipping company CV Sajira, was among those who contributed to the training of KW-9’s

militants. As DI’s elders were sickly and bickering over constitutional legitimacy and future

DI leadership, mid-level militants and cell leaders acquired a new sense of collective purpose

in the Ambon and Poso conflict areas.

DI’s mujahiddin were among the first to leave for Ambon. Based in Ambon and Buru, DI

worked to, and I quote, “show the rest of the mujahiddin that DI still exists”.4 From July to

September 1999, a large number (20 to 50) of the DI mujahiddin arrived from Sumatra after

first visiting Yogyakarta. From Yogyakarta they were equipped with some basic supplies and

then sent off to Makassar. In Makassar they met with Agus Dwikarna (operating under Ali

AT’s command) who would often equip DI mujahiddin with supplies (Al Quoran, pamphlets)

in Makassar before they left for Maluku. Once in Ambon, they met with Afghan graduate

and former subordinate to Abdullah Sungkar, Abu Dzar, who, according to DI Mujahiddin,

was one of the first to begin coordinating the mujahiddin. Apparently, According to two

sources, Abu Zaar was joined by Al Faruq and, intel operative, Abdul Haris. They set up a

camp and begin training. Prior to acceptance, each of the new mujahiddin would have to

introduce themselves, their home commanders and their sending party in Yogyakarta or

elsewhere. One mujahiddin explained his training as follows:

Our trainers were Indonesians who received training in Moro and Afghan. Our

training sessions only lasted for a month after which we had to burn all of our notes.

We weren’t as smart as the Moro trainers because we were force fed all that

material in only a month’s time. Every day we would wake at four, sholat at five and

then each of the mujahiddin would have to teach the others for 10 minutes. We

4 Interview with 30 year old DI militant who spent a year in Ambon as a DI mujahiddin, December

2003.

21

were trained to preach or berdakwah. After the preaching lessons we would exercise

in the field for one hour, bathe, eat and then study basic material. We would pray

again at noon and then study again until five. Again we would undergo physical

training at five. Then we did laundry, bathed and ate dinner. Then we would study

again until ten. We weren’t allowed to sleep before our instructor gave us his

briefing. At eleven we were given our codes for guard duty and we would take turns

keeping watch until 4 a.m. After one month of training we were all skin and bones.

Then the next wave would arrive and we would move on to military exercises and

practical preaching experience. We barely had any food and relied on coconuts and

donations from the surrounding community. JI had it better than we did. They had

regular shipments of food and their mujahiddin flew to Ambon on planes.5

In Poso similar shipments of mujahiddin were made. Unlike Ambon, however, the

mujahiddin in Poso were less exclusive. JI (called Pasukan Jihad or Jihad troops) and DI

(referred to as mujahiddin) milled around together and, having both received initial

trainings in Ambon, were less bound up in the historical conflicts felt by their Moro and

Afghan-trained superiors. During both the Ambon and Poso conflicts, roughly lasting from

July 1999 to 2002, new relationships were forged between second tier trainers from JI and

DI. Their low-level recruits were especially adept at building contacts within what they felt

was a common Islamic struggle or jihad. Most importantly, little contact was made between

the younger DI and JI militants and their elder, structural superiors. Instead, younger

mujahiddin affiliated themselves with small groupings led by trainers with horizontal ties to

alumni and war zones but whose structural positions were unclear. Their cells were

miniscule, sometimes numbering less than five men. Military recruitments were often

conducted in secret, leaving other cell members oblivious to the military ambitions of their

fellow mujahiddin.

When they returned to their hometowns, many of these young recruits joined groupings

with links to their trainers or their affiliates in their home areas. Moro graduates created

5 Interview with Darul Islam militants active in Poso and Ambon, December 2003.

22

small cells, sometimes even miniature structures of twenty or so men, throughout

Indonesia. Whether in Medan, Palembang, Lampung, Banten, Cianjur, Sukabumi, Solo,

Yogyakarta, Bandung or Jakarta, these small cells exist and persist as sleeper cells. Some of

these groupings have reassigned their groups to larger, older, structures within the DI

framework. Still others have affiliated themselves with JI and its loose assemblage of semi-

structured cells. The majority of these men have not, and this is worth some emphasis,

enchanted by any structural authority at all.

In Lieu of a Conclusion

Whether we turn to Abubakar Ba’asyir or Tahmid Kartosuwiryo for an explanation of a

particular bombing, we will most likely be left with no explanation at all. The perpetrators of

the bombings are largely loose groupings of men who, in 1998 for DI or 2000 for JI, became

disenchanted with the direction their respective structures were taking. Initially researchers

were delighted to discover that JI and DI both possessed powerful chains of command with

structures based in bai’at ordination and patron-client hierarchies of subservience. These

structures continue to provide a template for how militants and potential bombers are

hiding and recruiting future militants. These practices persist now but on a much smaller

scale and with less nationalist ambitions than in the past. Bai’at, the election of group

leaders and the secretive formation of a military core does require some coordination

between cell leaders and structural commanders. Nevertheless, among the some seven

hundred men trained to become DI’s Korps Cakra Buana in the 1990’s, very few continue to

avow a collective jihad as their ultimate goal in life. After the Cisarua meetings held

between DI’s structural elders in late 1998, Korps Cakra Buana and Battalion Abubakar were

both disbanded as potential fighting forces.

The leaders of both of these groups felt it necessary for Darul Islam to adopt a different

stance when the New Order ended. Without Suharto and his military to resist, they would

have to, as they told the author, adopt the methods of modern warfare and, therefore,

organize an intelligence framework. They even went so far as to develop intelligence-

23

training manuals to transform their fighting force into a network of spies and counter-

intelligence agents. To put it lightly, their Moro-trained elites and their recent recruits were

no longer pleased with the direction that DI had taken. For instance, in 2001, DI militants

such as Kang Jaja, Dedi and Harun have relied instead on their own resources and took leave

of the increasingly pacifistic Darul Islam command structure. They had developed their own

networks through coordination with second-tier leaders active in Poso, Ambon, Medan,

Yogyakarta and Jakarta. They had established contact with elite operatives such as M.

Noordin Top and Dr. Azhari from Malaysia. They had monetary resources from Kang Jaja’s

company, CV Sajira, and were capable of recruiting militants trained during the 1990’s under

DI, or as volunteers and recruits to the Muslim-Christian conflicts of Maluku and Poso.

We need no grand structural design to understand how these groups operate. In fact, a

structure or two would be helpful right about now. We need not celebrate JI or DI as

institutions to recognize the fact that structures led by elders, ulama clerics and

bureaucracies of contending factions actually help to temper the rebellious youth cells

under their control. Structural leaders take account of the situation to see whether a

victory, the end-cause of any proper nationalist jihad, is within their grasp. As DI’s structural

command weakened under the pressure of internal factionalism, and JI lost its structural

authority with the death of Abdullah Sungkar in 1999, both structurally coordinated

organizations were deprived of much of their former power by 2001. Pressure from

international and national intelligence organizations made the already fragmented nature of

these two structures appear more practical (multi-celled not broken) than tragic (defunct

beyond recognition).

Structure is not proof of emergent terrorism and bureaucratic designs do not a good

terrorist make. Instead, small networks of sleeper cells aligned through affinities discovered

in Afghanistan, Moro, and the jungles of West Java or in the battlefields of Maluku and Poso

now sustain these bombers on the run. These small groups are more effective without

structural commanders and constitutional debates. They are run by younger, more military

focused men with clear military goals. Bombs, and not armed combat, are the most

24

effective tools for such groups. DI’s sleeper cell defectors can no longer call on the Battalion

Abubakar or the Korps Cakra Buana to stage an armed insurgency. Instead, they recruit from

their former ranks, selecting those among their peers who they most trust or are most easily

manipulated. They do not disavow their structural elders but choose instead elders who

have long since been neglected by DI’s structural elite and who still possess the communal

authority required to provide their recruitment strategies with the requisite historical

credibility. The fact that Darul Islam’s structural elite do not agree with attacks upon

civilians does not bother these youth recruits. They are nations unto themselves but they

possess, and draw from, relations developed while they were active members in DI, JI or

admixtures of the two developed in Maluku and Poso. The catching of these men is another

matter. The regions where they might hide and with whom they might take shelter might be

known to us and might be within reach of DI’s structural elite. DI is not a terrorist

organization nor is its structure motivated by the eventual destruction of the US and its

allies. With Suharto’s regime out of power and communism a figment of the past, DI’s

primary goal is the implementation of Islamic law. They can persuade political parties to

implement Syari’at law without threat of violence. DI should not, be co-opted. Instead, it

can be recognized, reckoned with and requests should be made. DI will not remain a safe

house for such men if it is within the reach of DI’s elders to make it so. There is no harm in

trying.

A Glossary of Sorts:

1) Adah Jaelani: This is perhaps the most successful faction in the DI pantheon

of would-be-Imams. Many of Adah Jaelani loyalists, particularly from the KW-

9 command under Abu Toto, joined him once more when he left prison in

1994. Apparently, in 1995, although there were no witnesses present,

Ajengan Masduki surrendered his Imam-status to Adah Jaelani. Unfortunate

for DI, rather than make use of Ajengan Masduki’s structure he appointed his

own band of personal contacts and loyalists. At the time, 1996, Tahmid

25

Kartosuwiryo was KSU (General Head of Staff) under Adah Jaelani. Tahmid

told Adah Jaelani that Abu Toto (then head of KW-9) had violated DI’s tenets.

Unable to accept Tahmid’s advice, Adah fired Tahmid and appointed Abu

Toto the new KSU (General Head of Staff). Shortly thereafter, Adah Jaelani

shocked fellow DI members when he, without the presence of a Syuro

council, declared Abu Toto the new Imam of NII or DI. This faction still exists

to this day. In fact, Adah recruited high ranking DI commander, Ules Suja’I, to

their ranks. Proof of their success is the construction of Ma’had Al Zaytun in

Indramayu, West Java, as a center for their movement and the future capital

of The Islamic State of Indonesia or NII.

2) Ajengan Masduki’s Remaining Faction: Adah Jaelani appointed Ajengan

Masduki as his “temporary deputy” in 1982. His claim was strengthened in

1987 at Pulau Panjang, Lampung when he gathered his own temporary Syuro

Council to make his appointment legal and binding. The election of Ajengan

Masduki at Pulau Panjang therefore erased his deputy status and made him a

proper Imam. Ajengan Masduki felt that since an official and legal Syuro

Council elected him Imam there is no reason to replace him. In 1998, Tahmid

Kartosuwiryo and Adah Jaelani did not agree. At the Cisarua Meetings held in

November 1998, Tahmid and the reigning DI elite forced Ajengan to

surrender his sizable following to Tahmid Kartosuwiryo’s ruling majority. A

small group of Ajengan loyalists based in Lampung call themselves “the 87

group” after the year when Ajengan was elected Imam. Ajengan Masduki

passed away in November 2003.

3) Tahmid Faction: Tahmid Kartosuwiryo is son to the late Imam Kartosuwiryo.

His faction became officially active at the Cisarua meetings of 1998 where

DI’s most important surviving leaders gathered to determine the future of DI

leadership. The Cisarua meetings elected Tahmid to be The General Staff

Head of DI but they never reached a consensus as to whether he should be

26

elected Imam. That was to be determined in two subsequent meetings to be

held three and then six months after Cisarua. Nevertheless, Cisarua did have

significant effects. The ruling Imam, Ajengan Masduki, was forced to

surrender his structure of Afghan and Moro graduates in addition to his 6,000

man network of structural cadres to Tahmid’s new structural command. It

was also suggested that regional commanders of Sumatra and Sulawesi

surrender their significant forces to Tahmid’s command. Provisional

agreements were met but never finalized in subsequent meetings. In fact,

after Cisarua no other meetings were held. Sulawesi, Sumatra and other rival

groups in attendance decided to operate according to their own accord

further pushing their young cadres into still smaller, disjunctive cells. For lack

of a consensus among DI’s elders, DI youth and third tier leaders struck out

on their own. Although Tahmid is weak he is all that DI has at the moment.

On a more positive note, many among the intellectual group, Presda, also

joined forces with Tahmid and have had a significant impact on the overall

nature of Tahmid’s struggle. Much to the dismay of military leadership,

Tahmid is taking a much more integration-oriented approach to DI’s struggle

and has even conceded to cooperation with provincial and national political

authorities. Unfortunately, youth organized under DI’s military factions also

feel that Tahmid has betrayed the revolutionary nature of their struggle and,

as a result, often join other groups but still consider themselves DI.

4) Abdul Fatah Wiranagapati-Emeng Abdurrahman:

This faction formed in 1987 under the coordination of the “Team 12”. Team

12 was based in Bandung under Hadi Utomo and developed close ties to

Abdullah Sungkar’s subordinates: Irfan Awwas, Fikhirudin and Mukhliansyah.

The “Yogyakarta-Bandung Axis” was broken, however, when Team 12 lost

their leaders when Indonesian authorities forced Mukliansyah and company

to leave Yogya for Jakarta. Team 12 found their next leader in Abdul Fatah

Wiranaggapati (AFW). Team 12 saw AFW as the KUKT (Functional Head of the

27

High Command), the position he held when Abu Daud of Aceh was captured

in 1976. Legally, this would make him the heir to the seat of Imam so long as

Abu Daud did not reassume his position, which he did not. Team 12 elected

AFW Imam for these legitimate and legal reasons. In 1989, AFW was arrested

once again and, according to Team 12, made a fatal error when he

acknowledged that the State Ideology of Pancasila was correct and true.

Several members of Team 12 felt that this statement nullified AFW’s Imam

status while others continued to defend his actions as tactics to deceive the

enemy. Six of Team 12 left Team 12 while the remaining half-dozen held a

council hearing to elect AFW’s deputy, Emeng Abdurahman, as their new

Imam.

5) Abdullah Sungkar:

Even though on paper Abdullah Sungkar’s faction grew under Ajengan

Masduki’s authority, Sungkar’s group marched to its own drum. The

affiliations formed during the early 1980’s during the Usroh movement

empowered Abdullah Sungkar and helped him establish a network of

underground cells in Central Java, Bandung and Jakarta. Abdullah Sungkar’s

crowning moment occurred began in 1985 when he was commissioned to

send and train future Mujahiddin DI to Afghanistan for military training.

Abdullah Sungkar’s “hijrah” status as a leader in exile to helped him to build a

reputation as an international Islamic leader. Meanwhile, his Imam, Ajengan

Masduki, practiced a more NU or traditional style of Islam which, although

accepted in Indonesia, did not translate easily into the Salafi world of Afghan

Mujahiddin. Divisions between the traditionalist Ajengan Masduki and the

Salafi-oriented Abdullah Sungkar had existed for some time but became more

severe when Afghan graduates returned to Indonesia with a new ideology. In

1993 Abdullah Sungkar sent emissaries and a letter to Ajengan Masduki

declaring his decision to leave Darul Islam. Until 1995, no common ground

could be reached between the two leaders. Abdullah Sungkar and his

28

following of “Salafi Loyalists” (Salafi Solihin) supporters formed their own

branch of militant Islam called Jemaah Islamiyah. Nevertheless, relations

between fellow Afghan graduates and Condet initiates persisted even if their

leaders could not see eye to eye. DI loyalists followed Ajengan while JI

advocates supported Abdullah Sungkar and Abubakar Ba’asyir.

6) Gaus Taufik’s Faction: According to many DI romantics the “straightest”

and “toughest” faction in DI is Gaus Taufik’s (GT) Sumatra network. GT’s

following consists of militants who long for Kartosuwiryo’s time when DI

possessed a strong military. Gaus Taufik is a simple man who refuses to force

his followers to bai’at or pay dues to him as their functional head. GT

continues to visit all heads of the various factions through efforts to re-unify

DI. He has also written several essays concerning the importance of setting

up a welfare system based on Islamic principles of zakat. Such ideas are

compelling to young and old DI in Garut-West Java where, during the early

1950’s, Kartosuwiryo been able to establish a zakat welfare system for the

infirm or elderly. Equally important is the militant and decidedly younger

faction of DI youths under the coordination of Abu Ridho and Nur Hidayat.

7) Separate but of the Same Ilk: Abdul Qadir Baraja established his own,

separate, group. This group claims to have no direct ties to DI or JI but has

absorbed DI mujahiddin to struggle in a non-violent way for a Khilafah Ala

Minhajin Nubuwah. One of the key leaders of this movement is Haji Sobari,

formerly a DI official. His followers are largely a sub-grouping that broke away

from DI’s Regional Command (KW-9) in Jakarta to join a religious studies

group called Thoriquna. Also, Budi Santoso of Presda (Presidium Daerah)

formally left DI in 1995 when Fahrul Rozi was ordered to join Tahmid

Kartosuwiryo’s grouping under KW-1. Budi Santoso went on to form his own

non-militant group called the Indonesian Muslim League or LMI.

29

8) Middle of the Road: The middle of the road group consists of smaller

gatherings that wish to continue struggling within the structure of DI and

work towards a re-unification of DI’s various factions. This group tends to

operate as go-betweens for JI and DI members. They maintain contact with

both DI and JI members without taking positions in either of their

organizations. They can be perceived to be a “progressive” group and an

“active” group. Among the active is Aos Hidayat, a DI member who has since

joined MMI (Majelis Mujahiddin Indonesia) formed by Irfan Awwas and

Abubakar Ba’asyir. Meanwhile, Al Chaidar and Adi SMK are two progressive

DI youth leaders who fulfill similar progressive functions for JI and DI.

9) The Players:

The players is a translation of the Indonesian term pemain which often refers

to figures who move in and out of different political or military circles. Within

DI one such pemain was the recently murdered. He was the Acehnese activist

and historian, Abu Jihad or Fauzi Hasbi Gedong. Abu Jihad supported the

revitalization of Abu Daud’s Republik Islam Aceh (RIA). He was also active in

GAM and, as a result, the Indonesian military captured him in 1979.

Because Abu Jihad’s father was a respected DI leader in Aceh in addition to

the fact that he maintained close relations with like-minded figures in

Malaysia, Abu Jihad possessed real authority in Aceh and North Sumatra.

Fauzi Hasbi also developed close ties to Indonesia’s intelligence body, BIN.

Near the end of his life Abu Jihad had close relations with JI, DI, BIN and high-

ranking Indonesian military officials. Although this was not unusual for all of

the above institutions to have “contacts” such as Abu Jihad it is most likely

one of the reasons for his untimely and violent death.

Another such player is Dharsono. Dharsono was involved in the Lampung-

Talangsari incident and was subsequently imprisoned with Nur Hidayat and

other Lampung-related militants. His career took off as a “player” when, in

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1998, Hendro Priyono, Indonesia’s intelligence Don and former Commanding

officer when the military attacked Talangsari, requested his assistance in an

“Islah” campaign. Islah is meant to describe reconciliation between two

parties. With the help of Dharsono, Hendro Priyono established NGO called

Yayasan Bunaya to attend to the needs of the victims of the Talangsari

attacks. Dharsono assisted Hendro in his activities that included the

transmigration of former DI families to shrimp farms where they would share

in the profits of military owned enterprises. Dharsono remains close to

intelligence and military officials further increasing his notoriety as a “player”

capable of negotiating with these institutions on behalf of DI or other

militants in his network of contacts.

Backgrounds of the Various military leaders

1. Adah Djaelani; Military Commander for DI’s regional Command KW-7 (1962), Imam

of the Islamic State of Indonesia (1979), He maintained close relationships to

intelligence chief and personal aid to Suharto, Ali Murtopo. He relied on the

relationship between Danu Muhammad Hasan (1971-1977) and Ali Moertopo to

protect his growing network of militants. He was involved Komji (1980-1982) and

was made an advisor to Abu Toto’s massive pesantren, Al Zaytun in 1996.

2. Tahmid Kartosuwiryo; Tahmid was the second to youngest son of Imam

Kartosuwiryo. His political career with DI began when was appointed General Head

of Staff or KSU in 1979 after Adah Jaelani was made Imam. Tahmid remained with

Adah Jaelani’s people but lacked a military background or experience in a hijrah

state. Careful coordination in the late 1990’s helped Tahmid to become reigning

head of the largest DI faction in Indonesia. His authority was formalized at the secret

Cisarua meetings of 1998.

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3. Abdullah Sungkar was a religious instructor at pesantren Al Mukmin together with

Abu Bakar Ba’asyir and Abdul Quodir Baraja of West Nusatenggara and Lampung.

During the mid- 1970’s he was close to Abdullah Umar of DI North Sumatra. After

Hispran’s arrest in 1979 he appointed acting head of Regional Command KW-2 of

Central Java. He then went on to work with Mursallin Dahlan of the GPI Jakarta to

establish the Usroh (1979-1983) religious movement in Central Java, Bandung and

later Jakarta. He was also suspected of involvement in Komando Jihad because of his

subordinate role to Regional Commander and DI war veteran, Hispran (1983-1984).

After moving to Negeri Sembilan in Malaysia in 1985, in 1987 acting Imam Ajengan

Masduki appointed Abdullah Sungkar Menteri Luar Negeri and KUKT or Functional

Head of High Command (1987-1993). After formally rejecting Darul Islam, Abdullah

Sungkar was made Amir Jemaah Islamiyah (1993-1999).

4. Abu Bakar Ba’asyir; He taught at pesantren Al’Mukmin and continues to serve as

head of that pesantren to the present day. Together with Abdullah Sungkar, Abu

Bakar Ba’asyir was involved in Usroh (1979-1983), implicated in Komando Jihad

(1983-1984) and was appointed Minister of Justice under acting Imam Ajengan

Masduki (1987-1993). After Abdullah Sungkar’s death in 1999 he was made Amir JI

(1999-present). Unlike Darul Islam Abu Bakar Ba’asyir also possesses a “cooperative”

(cooperative with government) Islamist affiliation known as Majelis Mujahiddin

Indonesia. He is Amir of MMI to the present day (2000-present).

5. Irfan Awwas began his relationship with DI when he headed the Yogyakarta chapter

of GPI or Indonesian Islamic Youth organization. He was also active, although he was

still a teenager, in Usroh Yogya-Bandung (1980-1983). He participated and wrote for

the Islamic and anti-Suharto magazine, Majalah Risalah (1983-1984). He left

Yogyakarta when the Tanjung Priok riots implicated Majalah Risalah and its staff in

the “religious fanatacism” than precipitated the crackdown. After arriving in Jakarta

Irfan Awwas became especially active in Ring Condet (1984-1989). From 1993

onward, he maintained his loyalties to Majelis Mujahiddin Indonesia (MMI).

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6. Mitra was active in Ring Condet (1983-1989) and, by 1990 had already developed a

group of especially well-trained militants called AMIN (1990). In the mid to late

1990’s he became close with Kyai Syamsuri, a mysterious character who claimed to

be none other than Kahar Muzakar. Before developing AMIN and his spiritual

adventures with Kyai Syamsuri, Mitra was in charge of the military branch of

Jakarta’s Regional Command. He was especially strong in 1989 when he and Furzon

worked side by side to send militants to Pakistan and Malaysia. When Mitra became

close to Kyai Syamsuri, however, his relationship with his immediate superior and

brother in arms, Furzon, deteriorated. Without Furzon, Mitra put his military AMIN

network to work. In 1999, he was involved in the robbery of Bank Central Asia in

Jakarta. One of his militants was also responsible for the bombing of the Istiqlal

mosque. Most notably one of the trainers for his group was involved in the machete

attack on Matori Abdul Djalil. For approximately a year Mitra was also responsible

for the development and training of DI’s Laskar Abu Bakar (1997-1998). Mitra never

recognized the authority of Tahmid’s Imam status. Instead, he has associated himself

with Gaus Taufik although he could not be described as a true, structural,

subordinate.

7. Furzon, described above, was one of the key recruiters in the early years of Ring

Condet (1983-1989). He was then recruited to join regional command KW-1 (1990)

under Ajengan Masduki. When Ajengan Masduki surrendered his authority to

Tahmid, Furzon was asked to join Tahmid’s Dewan Imamah (presently).

8. Nur Hidayat began his Islamic training while working as a Riau customs agent

(1980’s), He was a member of Ring Condet (1984-1985), Poros Yogya. He developed

an Islamic village in Lampung after which he was imprisoned until 1996. In 1997,

Hendro Priyono, then Minister of Transmigration now head of National intelligence,

asked Nur Hidayat to be involved in Ishlah Lampung (1997-1998). Through the

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Lampung Reconciliation, Nur Hidayat worked for Yayasan Bunaya, an organization

founded to assist former Lampung victims and their families. Nur Hidayat’s

connections to Hendro Priyono were cause for worry among several DI activists.

Nevertheless, he continues to play the role of activist revolutionary and tough.