Six Suspected Terrorists Were Gunned Down During An East Java Shootout

A recent attack by the terrorist organization Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) left six suspected members of the group dead. Members of the group tried to attack police, and they were gunned down in a shootout between them and members of Densus 88 and the police in Tuban, East Java.

The Head of East Java Police force, Machfud Arifid, said at a press conference that six men drove a car towards a local police station and started firing shots at policers officers. After failed hitting their targets, the men tried to escape before being intercepted by other officers in the nearby village of Suwalan, according to police. A shootout broke out, leading to the death of all six men, police said.

"It's definitely related to JAD, but we're still investigating the identity of the suspects," Officer Machfud told BBC Indonesia). Officer Machfud thinks the attack was revenge against the police for the death and the arrest of a number of JAD members in the past year.

JAD is a radical organization led by Aman Abdurrahman who is currently serving a nine year prison sentence for founding up a terrorist training camp in the mountains of Aceh, North Sumatra.

The same group is responsible for a series of high profile attacks around Indonesia like the Jakarta bombings of 2014, which left eight people dead, a molotov attack in Samarinda and a pressure cooker bomb in Bandung last February.

In January 2017, the United States Department of State designated JAD as terrorist organization and froze their assets. The decision was taken after a link was found between JAD, ISIS and the Abu Sayyaf group based in the Phillipines.

Al Chaidar, a terrorist expert at Malikussaleh University, regretted the way the government dealt with the attack. He says shootouts will not help root out terrorism and can only lead to more revenge actions.

"I don't think it was the right approach," Al Chaidar told VICE Indonesia. "The officials and the government need a clearer strategy. There should be an arrest process from which we can gain information for the future."

According to Al Chaidar, JAD has millions of supporters spread throughout 18 provinces in Indonesia. With such a large number of backers, JAD can easily collect donations from people sympathetic to the group in order to maintain their operation.

"We can no longer underestimate JAD, their network is so wide that they are able to go all the way to the Philippines to purchase weapons," said Al Chaidar.

Last March, the police caught eight suspected terrorists who were trying to smuggle 18 M16 assault rifles in South Philippines. The police believe these weapons were to be used in a series of terrorist attacks throughout Jakarta.

Al Chaidar claimed that JAD's organizational pattern is similar to Jemaah Islamiyah's (JI), a terrorist group that was disbanded in the early 2000s.

"Structurally, JAD is pretty similar to JI. The difference is JAD has independent cells spread all over several regions. They also utilize social media to spread their message. Their attacks are pretty similar, they believe in the effectiveness of brutal violence," said Al Chaidar.