By Kate Lamb and Agustinus Beo Da Costa
JAKARTA, April 1 (Reuters) - As the rain teemed down and
guests feasted on chicken curry, Muhammad Lukman married his
burqa-clad bride in a late night ceremony at the home of
Rizaldi, the head of their Islamic prayer group, on the
Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
Guests who attended the August wedding said the ceremony was
held at 10 p.m., deemed auspicious.
This week, on Palm Sunday morning, the newlyweds strapped
pressure cooker nail bombs to their chests and detonated them as
they drove into the Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral in the
provincial capital of Makassar.
Their deaths followed the killing of their wedding host in
January, shot by counter-terrorism forces.
The millennial, newlywed bombers were the only fatalities in
the cathedral attack, but the incident offers a view into the
Islamic State's dangerous legacy in Southeast Asia, and the
personal and family ties that bind religious extremists across
the region.
In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority
nation, pro-ISIS groups remain a threat two years after the
ultra-radicals were defeated in Syria and Iraq, analysts say.
The Makassar church bombing was the third such attack
perpetrated by husband and wife suicide bombers from Indonesia
in recent years.
In May 2018, an Indonesian family of six, a husband and wife
and their four children, detonated explosives at several
churches in the Javanese city of Surabaya, part of a series of
attacks that killed 28 people.
Less than a year later, Ulfa Handayani Saleh and her husband
Rullie Rian Zeke, both Indonesians, bombed a cathedral in Jolo,
in the southern Philippines, killing 23 and injuring more than
100.
Ulfa was the sister of Rizaldi, whose home was where the
Makassar bombers were married.
"This is the unique legacy of ISIS promoting the rise of
familial terrorism," said Noor Huda Ismail, a visiting fellow at
the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, "A number of
Indonesians joined ISIS as family members."
More than 1,100 Indonesians left the country to join ISIS,
sometimes as whole families, including toddlers and infants,
said Sidney Jones, director of the Jakarta-based Institute for
Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC).
In part, they were influenced by effective ISIS propaganda
that idealised the concept of rearing children in a pure Islamic
state, she said. Hundreds were deported or returned after ISIS
was defeated in 2019.
'DO WHAT YOU CAN'
Police said the Makassar bombers were a couple who belonged
to Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), an Islamic State-inspired group
suspected of suicide attacks in Surabaya and elsewhere.
Given the fragmented nature of JAD, Jones said it was
instructive to examine the personal ties that reveal how
extremists connect up across the region.
The Makassar attack, said Jones, was likely part ISIS
ideology fused with revenge for Rizaldi's death.
"What we are seeing is not only supporters of ISIS acting on
their own in accordance with instructions earlier to do what you
can wherever you can," she said, "But also doing it because of
local drivers."
Opening a kebab shop next to his house after he wed,
neighbours say Lukman was quiet and religious, that his wife
sold skin whitening products online, and everyone was surprised
to learn they secretly harboured violent intentions.
"I was selling food at the market when someone said someone
had blown themselves up. I said, 'So dumb. Why would anyone kill
themselves? What for?' But I didn't realize it was my nephew,"
Lukman's aunt, Sitti Rahma, 48, told Reuters, through tears.
Police said the 26-year-old bomber left a farewell letter to
his mother, in which he expressed his desire to die for his
religious beliefs.
On Wednesday, police shot dead a gun-wielding, 25-year-old
woman who had attempted to attack the national police
headquarters in Jakarta. Hours earlier she had posted a picture
of the Islamic state flag on her Instagram account, police said.
Seen as revenge for a string of arrests of suspected
militants across the archipelago in recent days, the incident is
another example of a global trend of women taking on more active
militant roles.
Since the Palm Sunday attack, Indonesian police have
arrested at least 32 suspected extremists in Jakarta, Sulawesi,
Java, and West Nusa Tenggara, raids that also uncovered more
than 5 kilograms of explosives, including “Mother of Satan”, or
triacetone triperoxide (TATP), a powerful but unstable mixture
often used by Islamist militant groups.
"Despite being pushed back in the Middle East, ISIS networks
in various countries are still active, including in Indonesia,"
said terrorism analyst Stanislaus Riyanta. "Their strength is
diminished, but they have not died yet."
Ismail, the analyst at the School of International Studies
said: "You cannot deny the fact that there is still a virtual
caliphate, which is now extremely hard to counter."