Indonesia terror strategy questioned as bombers re-emerge

Afp, Jakarta

Twin bomb attacks that hit luxury hotels in Indonesia's capital last week have shattered years of calm won through an innovative carrot-and-stick approach to fighting terror.
The suicide bombings at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta, which police said Sunday were the work of Southeast Asian militant network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), are the first of their kind since 2005. Analysts say Indonesia has made valuable headway with a divide-and-rule strategy that has hobbled JI and sown division in its ranks, but that creeping complacency has allowed a radical fringe to fester.
"I think worldwide counter-terrorism has been looking at Indonesia as a successful model until now," Indonesia-based analyst Noor Huda Ismail told AFP.
"I think in terms of understanding the network we've been doing great. Look at Guantanamo, it was a disaster," he said of the confrontational "War on Terror" approach taken by the United States.
JI's ultimate goal is to unite Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and the southern Philippines into a fundamentalist Islamic state, using terrorist attacks to destabilise governments across Southeast Asia.