Given that the diagram found in March only applies to Java, there are three possibilities for JIs use of the word:
? It is a new term for a geographic division larger than a wakalah but smaller than the old mantiqi. If so, it would suggest that the old Mantiqi II has been redivided (for example, Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi each being one sariyah), and Abu Dujana is the head for Java, still reporting to an amir.
? It is a purely military structure, separate from the standard administrative divisions that focus on religious outreach and education, but one of several such units in the overall organisation.
? It is a special forces unit to augment existing military capacity with branches in Java but perhaps elsewhere as well.
JIs history would suggest that the third is the most likely but the men arrested in March apparently were either unable or unwilling to explain very much about the structure or how it worked; they only spoke about their own unit, with some knowledge of the other Java-based leaders. Sarwo Edi, the Semarang ishoba head, was a former mathematics teacher and long-term JI member who had trained in Mindanao under Abu Dujana. He told reporters his role was to train cadres; that he had 24 men under him; and that they had planned to continue JIs struggle through kidnappings and assassinations. All the arrested men appear to have been in regular communication with Abu Dujana but also knew that he reported to someone higher.
The sariyah had apparently never been activated for specific operations (amaliyah) since it was established in late 2006. Military training had taken place in January 2007 on Mt. Sumbing, Temanggung, but while the cadres had discussed possible targets, they appear not to have progressed very far with concrete plans.
If the sariyah turns out to be equivalent to a special forces unit, it would be the latest in a series of not very successful efforts to form one. Around 1995, JIs central command authorised its military operations head Zulkarnaen to establish a laskar khos (special forces). According to a former JI member, it gave members a sense that they were superior and did not need to attend religious training sessions or other organisational meetings. Members were allowed to amass their own weapons, making control even more difficult. Zulkarnaen did not coordinate with Mustofa, who was head of training (tadrib), and there was no effort to match training to operational needs. After May 2000, wakalah heads complained that Zulkarnaen was poaching people from cells without informing them to build a special unit for Poso. The same accusations were made against Hambali, who tapped men for the Christmas Eve 2000 bombing and subsequent actions without informing their superiors.
In a meeting of senior JI leaders on 17 October 2002, Nasir Abas suggested that military functions be unified under a single person on the central command responsible for military affairs (tajnid), who would have subordinates in charge of training and operations, so that military capacity could be developed more systematically. Abu Rusdan, then caretaker amir, supported the idea, but the only person who decided to move forward with it was Nuaim (Nuim) alias Abu Irsyad, head of Mantiqi II. He put together a laskar khos, composed of two or three people from every wakalah who had had training in either Afghanistan or Mindanao. Training began in early 2003, with members divided into three groups: intelligence, logistic and engineering. By June police had arrested many of the participants, including the main trainer, Adi Suryana alias Qital, the military chief for Mantiqi II.
Since then, the only military operations carried out by the JI mainstream as opposed to the Noordin group have been in Poso. They have involved a systematic campaign of bombings and targeted assassinations, financed in part by armed robberies. It was designed not only to avenge past Muslim deaths and shock the government into addressing unresolved justice issues, as the perpetrators claimed, but also to keep a local jihad going so as to aid recruitment.
The steady stream of JI ustadz (Muslim teachers) going up to Poso from Semarang and Solo since 2003 indicates that the violence there has been directed from Java. We now know from the Poso detainees that one of the senior JI figures in Central Sulawesi since 2000 was a medical doctor from Surabaya, Agus Idris, who was in communication with Abu Dujana, with whom he may have worked in Mindanao. Ustadz Rian alias Riansyah alias Eko alias Abdul Hakim, an Afghan veteran from Solo, turned up in Poso in late 2004 and was killed in a police operation there on 11 January 2007. He too had been in contact with Abu Dujana. And two local Poso recruits were sent sometime in 2005 to study bomb-making with Agus Suryanto, the man killed in March, also an Abu Dujana protege.
One explanation that fits these facts is that Mantiqis II and III may have been fused sometime after 2004, leaving the Mantiqi II head, Nuaim alias Abu Irsyad, as de facto amir of the streamlined organisation. Abu Dujana, who trained in Afghanistan in 1989 and became an instructor in Mindanao ten years later, may have been appointed military coordinator in place of, or in collaboration with Zulkarnaen, and in this capacity been responsible for sending Mindanao-trained ustadz to Poso. It would explain the close coordination between central Java and Poso, including that JI operatives in Poso were getting some of their explosives from the cache in Sukoharjo. His experience in Poso might have been an incentive to try yet again to develop a special force. It would have been perfectly in keeping with JIs doctrine of jihad to keep a military unit and arsenal at the ready, even if not for immediate use. But it would also make sense for someone of Abu Dujanas stature and reported administrative capabilities to be given control of JIs most important region, Java, for tasks beyond military affairs. The conundrum may only be sorted out when Abu Dujana, Zulkarnaen and Nuaim, or one of the three, is arrested.
Nuaim and Abu Dujana are said to be opposed to the kind of bombings undertaken by Noordin Top, and there is no indication that the explosives stored in Sukoharjo were to be used for Bali III. But attacks on local kafirs and anti-Islamic (thoghut) officials were something that even the most vocal anti-Noordin leaders could support in the appropriate circumstances. Sarwo Edi, the Semarang ishoba head, told an Indonesian journalist that they had planned to target Satya Wacana, a well-known Christian university in Salatiga, a Central Java town between Semarang and Solo, if Muslims in Poso were attacked on Idul Fithri 2006, the holiday following Ramadan. But Poso JI members assert that they were attacked on 22 October, the eve of Ramadan, when police clashed with Muslims in the Tanah Runtuh complex, the local JI base. An assault on a prominent Christian university in retaliation, even though it had nothing to do with Poso or with the police, would have been seen as legitimate by many, if not most, JI rank and file.
In sum, whatever the new sariyah structure is, it is unlikely to be the military wing of JI per se, simply because JIs reach is so much broader than Java. This leads directly into the broader question of what is left of JI.
