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Medan, Indonesia – Ali Imron was one of the perpetrators of the deadly bombing in Bali, Indonesia in 2002. He said that he first saw the attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 in front of his local newspaper One page.
“We didn’t have a TV at the time,” Imran told Al Jazeera. The 52-year-old man was sentenced to life imprisonment for planning the Bali bombing, which killed more than 200 people, many of whom were foreign tourists. “But I immediately guessed that this was our friend’s’jihad’.”
Twenty years ago, Imran was a member of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a hardline organization established in Indonesia in 1993. According to Indonesian authorities, the organization currently has more than 1,600 active members. JI has historically been associated with al-Qaeda, which claims to September 11 And led by Osama bin Laden.
The 9/11 attack, when Al-Qaida members hijacked four commercial aircraft and crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, echoing around the world.
More than 2,500 people from 90 countries were killed. Analysts said the incident had a direct impact on the development of violent and hard-line networks in Southeast Asia, some of which have already cooperated with Al Qaeda.
“9/11 happened when Abdullah Sungkar, the founder of Jemaah Islamiyah, the largest militant group in the region, passed away two years ago. [its spiritual leader] Abubakar Bashir Is letting [Jemaah Islamiyah’s military commander] Hanbari cooperated with al-Qaeda to fight against Western targets. But this split the Jemaah Islamiyah because it runs counter to Songkhla’s patiently building power to overthrow the Suharto regime,” Quinton Tambi, assistant professor of public policy at Monash University in Indonesia, told Al Jazeera.
On October 12, 2002, an Indonesian police officer surveyed the scene after the Kuta bombing. [File: Jonathan Drake/Reuters]“Jemaah Islamiyah has never been an affiliate of Al Qaeda, let alone its franchise. But in the process of the rise of global jihad, it is a key ally of Al Qaeda. Jemaah Islamiya is some 9/ 11 The hijackers provide logistical support,” he said.
Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar The plane that crashed into the Pentagon, Via Malaysia to the United States.It is believed that they met with senior Indonesian JI figures, including Encep Nurjaman, alias Hambali, who is now facing Guantanamo Bay Military Commission After 18 years of detention in the United States, he was charged with a series of terrorism-related charges.
A report issued by the Senate Special Committee on Intelligence in 2014, also known as the “torture report”, stated that Humbali transferred funds to the French national Zacharias Mousavi in order to study in the United States by 9/11 Flight school to receive training for potential hijackers. Mousavi After being arrested in August 2001 and confessing to plotting to kill a US citizen on September 11, he was later sentenced to life imprisonment.
“The few Southeast Asian militants who worked closely with Al Qaeda were inspired by the 9/11 incident, but few knew about the conspiracy in advance, and most people were shocked by its’success’,” Tempy said.
Over the next few years, members of JI and Al-Qaida continued to support each other, and Temby added that Al-Qaida funded attacks in Southeast Asia, such as the Bali bombing.
‘Turning point’
Although Imran is a member of Jemaah Islamiyah, he claimed that he did not know the 9/11 plan, but he told Al Jazeera that the organization found inspiration in the attack and even planned to treat the Bali bombing as a kind of “tribute”.
“I still remember it,” he said. “Immam Samudra wanted to carry out the Bali bombing on September 11 to commemorate the anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center, but there was not enough time.”
Ali Imren (center) was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2003 because he said he was sorry that his actions had killed innocent people [File: Widhia/EPA]The explosion finally occurred on October 12, and the attackers targeted a busy bar in Kuta.
Imron added that the original plan was to attack naval ships in Singapore’s port, but after seeing the scale of 9/11, they turned their attention to Bali. Senior members like Humbali also agreed with bin Laden’s controversial statements, which attempted to justify the killing of ordinary people other than military targets.
Imron said that he and other members of his team showed footage of the World Trade Center attack and video information of the perpetrators to the two bombers, which had been posted online and broadcast widely, and then the two bombers The suicide vest was detonated in the Sari Club and Paddy’s house. Tavern.
“We played a video to them a few days before the Bali bombing,” Imran told Al Jazeera. “The suicide bombers were not afraid, but the video of the 9/11 attacks gave them a lot of encouragement.”
Two brothers, Mukhlas and Amrozi, senior members of JI, Samudra and Imron, were executed in Indonesia in 2009 for planning the Bali attack. Imren was sentenced to life imprisonment after expressing regret and apologizing during the trial.
Noor Huda Ismail, a former member of the Muslim hardline group Darul Islam, told Al Jazeera before the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attack that the Bali attack was a “turning point” in his life after he discovered his former roommate was involved.
Bali bombers watched a video of the September 11 attack before the Kuta attack, which killed nearly 20,000 people [File: Peter Morgan/Reuters]The bomb maker Mubarok once lived in the same room with Ismail in an Islamic boarding school. He made some explosive devices for the attack and was sentenced to life imprisonment together with Imron in 2003.
Ismail said that he asked himself how his old roommate would choose the path he did. He founded the International Peace Building Institute and carried out deradicalization projects and seminars in Indonesia, and monitored the toughness of the entire region. Send group threats.
“The September 11 attacks strongly affected the evolution of Southeast Asia’s global security threat landscape,” he said.
Ismail said that in the past 20 years, organizations such as Al-Qaida and the Islamic State of ISIL (ISIS) have established their own networks in the context of local conflicts and carried out secret activities in Southeast Asian countries to recruit local participants. Through the use of terror” on September 11th.
According to Judith Jacob, a senior analyst at Protection Group International, it is necessary to look back and forward to understand the true extent of the incident’s impact.
Even before 9/11, JI had been attacking.
On September 14, 2000, the organization bombed the Jakarta Stock Exchange, killing 15 people. Later this year, it carried out a series of coordinated explosions on the church on Christmas Eve, killing 18 people.
Abu Sayyaf kidnapped 21 people from Sipadan and took them to his Jolo stronghold, triggering a months-long hostage crisis [File: Romy Florante/AFP]Violent incidents have also occurred in the Philippines, such as the Rizal Day attack on December 30, 2000, which killed 22 people, coordinated bombings in Manila, regular skirmishes with southern security forces, market bombings, and kidnappings.
In April 2000, Abu Sayyaf hijacked 21 people from Sipadan, a diving island in Malaysia — half of them were foreign tourists — and hijacked them for ransom on Jolo Island in the Philippines, triggering a months-long hostage crisis.
Jolo is still one of the most dangerous places in the area, Abu Sayyaf It is now part of ISIL.
“Because of the scale of the destruction and the boldness of the attack, September 11 was absolutely inspiring for Southeast Asian militants,” Jacob said. “But they don’t need to be bold.”
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