F. LAMPUNG
Lampung has been a JI stronghold from the beginning, just as it was a Darul Islam base earlier, but very little is known about its activities. The most complete account comes from the interrogation deposition of a witness at Abu Bakar Baasyirs second trial. Utomo alias Abu Faruk alias Zakir, an East Java native and Afghan veteran, served as wakalah head from 1997 at least through 2004, when he testified, and perhaps to this day. Utomos ties are to Abu Rusdan and those most associated with the non-bombing faction of JI. The Lampung wakalah had five qirdas in Rajabasa and Telukbetung (Bandar Lampung); Gedung Tataan and Kalianda (south Lampung) and Metro (central Lampung), with a total membership in 2004 of about 150. He said JIs public identity was as the pengajian group in the al-Mabrur Mosque in Way Lunik Panjang. Nothing in Utomos testimony suggests a major decline after Bali I or even the Marriott bombings, in which several Sumatra-based JI members were implicated.
JI has at least two affiliated schools in Lampung and probably more. Pesantren Ulul Albab in Sukarame, Bandar Lampung, is headed by Agus Supriyadi, a Saudi-trained scholar of Islamic law; he is mentioned by another JI-Lampung official as attending a meeting of all wakalahs in Mantiqi II in Puncak, Bogor in August 2000. The school is highly reputable and Agus Supriyadi himself a popular preacher. In October 2006, the local newspaper, Radar Lampung, featured a whole page on a social event during Ramadan when hundreds of the newspapers sales agents from around Lampung gathered to break the fast and turned over a cheque to Agus Supriyadi to assist in strengthening religious education at Ulul Albab. A second school is al-Muhsin in Metro, central Lampung.
At least three wakalah members have Mindanao training. In early 2003 they were sent to Java as prospective members of a Mantiqi II special forces unit. One, Samuri Farich Mustofa, a Klaten, Central Java native, led the wakalahs military unit. He was arrested in Java in June 2003 and served just over two years of a three-year sentence.
G. NORTHERN SUMATRA
In 2003, at the time of the Marriott bombing, the northern Sumatra wakalah was based in Medan, headed by Abu Hanifah (a Mindanao veteran from the same graduating class at Ngruki as Fathur Rahman al-Ghozi, a legendary Indonesian JI operative who escaped from a maximum security prison in Manila only to be tracked down and killed in Mindanao in October 2003 ), and had three qirdas, in Banda Aceh, Medan and Tapanuli respectively.The Aceh qirdas had four cells in Samahani and Saree, Aceh Besar; Takengon, Central Aceh; and Kuala Simpang, Aceh Tamiang. The seven cells under the Medan qirdas were in Padang Bulan; Labuhan; Stabat on the Aceh border; Tanjung Kenas, Deli Serdang; Kotacane; Pematang Siantar; and Kabanjahe. The Tapanuli qirdas included cells in Batang Toru, Lumut, Sipirok, and Natal.
Little is known about any of these cells or whether they still exist, although Abu Hanifah is believed to remain the wakalah head. Most of those in Tapanuli and the Medan area are likely to have some link back to Ngruki. One of the men sentenced in the Marriott bombing, Masrizal alias Tohir, went to high school in Sipirok, Tapanuli in 1989, then transferred to Ngruki in 1990; that same year, a Ngruki graduate was assigned to undertake religious outreach in Sipirok, and several of his fellow students followed suit. Toni Togar alias Indrawarman, from the Medan-based wakalah involved in the first JI bombing on Indonesian soil in May 2000 as well as other operations, graduated from Ngruki the same year that Masrizal entered. A Ngruki yearbook from 1995 that shows where some alumni were assigned for postgraduate practice teaching lists Pesantren Salman al-Farisi in Tanjung Harap, in what used to be Deli Serdang, as a destination for several graduates.
Stabat, where another of the north Sumateran JI cells was based, is interesting because the siblings of several leading JI members attended pesantrens there. Muhamad Ikhwan alias Ismail, who helped in the planning of the Marriott bombing and whose family was based in Dumai, had a brother and sister at a pesantren (not named) in Stabat, while another brother attended Pesantren al-Islam in Lamongan. Likewise David Pintarto, a member of the al-Ghuraba group in Karachi and whose siblings also seemed drawn to JI schools, had a sister at Pesantren Ibdurrohman in Stabat. If a JI cell continues to function there, it is likely to be pesantren-based.
The Aceh cells are particularly noteworthy because so few Acehnese ever joined JI. One reason is that many who had been involved in Darul Islam chose to join the more secular GAM in 1976; those who remained loyal to Darul Islam were by definition anti-GAM and thus more likely to be pro-government. One of the few who went to Afghanistan with other Java-based Darul Islam recruits and became a JI member in 1993 was Raja Husein alias Marzuki, now reportedly based in Lampung and actively preaching against the Noordin-Mukhlas line. An Acehnese named Muntohar appears on the lists of JI trainees in Mindanao in 1999 but his whereabouts are unknown.
Given the sketchy information about cells in north Sumatra and Aceh, it is almost impossible to estimate numbers. One can assume that the total would be well below Lampung, which was traditionally more of a base. At a minimum of three persons per cell and with fifteen cells in 2003 and an administrative structure in Medan, a current total around 40 would be a conservative guess. Some individuals may have left but there is also likely to have been some new recruiting, so there is no reason to believe that the number has fallen substantially below the 2003 total.
