By Ainur Rohmah
JAKARTA
Volunteers from Indonesia and Malaysia have formed a Malay-speaking Islamic State in Syria and Levant unit, according to a report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict.
The Jakarta-based institute has said that 22 suspected members had created what they were calling the "Katibah Nusantara Lid Daulah Islamiyyah" (Malay archipelago unit for the Islamic State) in Al-Shadadi, north eastern Syria.
It said that two of the men - who appeared in a recent ISIL recruitment video - had posted an image of a meeting between the group on Facebook, but the picture has recently been removed.
Analysts have told the New Straits Times newspaper that the men appear to have been brought together after language difficulties, as many Indonesians found it hard to get along in multinational units with limited Arabic and English ability.
Robi Sugara of the Barometer Institute told the daily that the group had been formed "to recruit and facilitate people who want to go to Syria to defend the Islamic caliphate, and also do counter-attacks against governments that repress caliphate supporters."
Unlike the JI's South-east Asian Al-Ghuraba cell of the 1990s "which was based in Karachi, Pakistan, and made occasional trips to Afghanistan to train" the ISIL fighters had direct battle experience, added the institute's Sidney Jones.
"The cross-regional bonds established could also be the strongest we've seen in a long time," she warned.
A spokesman for Indonesia's police, Brig Boy Rafli Amar, told the Anadolu Agency on Saturday that it was wary of the spread of ISIL through members who travel through Indonesia from overseas and Indonesians coming home from war.
He said that Indonesia had become the target of recruitment by radical groups that have a network with the Islamic state.
"Radical groups in Indonesia have a network with the ISIS [ISIL] group abroad," he told AA.
In early September, Indonesia's anti-terror force arrested seven foreigners - four members of China's ethnic Uighur minority and three Indonesians - for suspected links with ISIL in Parigi, Central Sulawesi.
The State Intelligence Agency has estimated that more than 50 Indonesian citizens are fighting in Syria.
Outgoing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has instructed the Justice and Human Rights Ministry to limit the number of passports issued to nationals traveling to the Middle East. He has also called for the additional monitoring of nationals in Syria and foreigners in the country.
Malaysia's Foreign Minister Anifah Aman told the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday that Malaysia had designated ISIL a terrorist group, and vowed tougher action. It has also ordered financial institutions to screen clients against the UN's terror database and to freeze funds and assets if suspicious activity is detected.
On Wednesday, a Filipino mayor warned that recruitment by the Abu Sayyaf and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) -- who have both sworn allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL -- of young Muslims is "rampant" in his and neighboring towns in the southern Philippines island of Basilan.
ISIL has captured large swathes of land in Iraq and Syria, later declaring the territories under its control an Islamic "caliphate." The U.S. and its Arab allies began bombing ISIL targets inside Syria on Tuesday, after conducting airstrikes in Iraq since August.
www.aa.com.tr/en
