– KOMANDO JIHAD

–

After Darul Islam was, practically, dismantled in the mid 60s’, underground networks have persisted. In the 1970s and 1980s, there were occurrences of ‘Islamic’ terrorism in Western Java attributed to a group known as ‘Komando  Jihad’. The leaders arrested from this group were found to be Darul Islam veterans.

On 03/28/1981 Komando  Jihad carried out its most spectacular attack. Five members of Komando  Jihad boarded a plane that was on an Indonesian internal flight and took it and the 57 passengers to Bangkok, Thailand, after refueling in Malaysia. They were armed with machine guns and dynamite, and demanded the release of 20 political prisoners, that all “Jew officials and Israeli militarists” be expelled from Indonesia, and that they be given $1.5 million dollars. After four days, Indonesian commandos stormed the plane, killing four out of the five hijackers, with the fifth jailed. Apart from injuries to the pilot and a member of the flight crew, all other passengers and crew were unharmed.

The event brought upon an intensive crack down on Komando  Jihad, which ceased to exist in the mid 80s’. However Komando  Jihad became an aspiration model for the later INDONESIAN JI.

* There are speculations in Indonesia that Komando  Jihad had been set up in 1968, initially, by General Ali Moertopo, a senior army colleague of then president Soeharto, with the aim of attracting remaining Islamic militants to step forward, and actually expose themselves to Indonesian security apparatuses, and discrediting Islamic political groups seen as a threat to the regime.

 

 

*******************************

Read more ;