CASE #1 June 30, South Jakarta: Two Indonesian policemen were injured in an attack by a militant wielding a bayonet. The attack took place during the Isyak prayers at the Falatehan Mosque about 7.40pm. The assailant was shot and killed.
CASE #2 June 25, Medan: An Indonesian police officer was stabbed and later died of his wounds in an attack by suspected militants in Medan. Police shot dead one suspect and one was arrested after the attack on a police post.
CASE #3 May 24, East Jakarta: A pair of suicide bombers struck a bus station, killing three police officers. Six other officers and five civilians were wounded in the twin blasts set off five minutes apart by two attackers in the Kampung Melayu area of Jakarta. At the scene, police found aluminium, nails, buckshot and receipts for the purchase of rice cookers.
This is a story about Indonesia, our close neighbour which has suffered a series of mostly low-level attacks by Islamic State (IS) sympathisers in the past 17 months.
The May 24 attack was the deadliest in Indonesia since January 2016, when eight people were killed, four of them attackers, after suicide bombers and gunmen attacked Jakarta.
Policemen have now become the “primary target” of militants in Indonesia.
Authorities in the world’s biggest Muslim nation are increasingly concerned about a surge in radicalism, driven in part by a new generation of militants inspired by IS.
Western media outlets said the group may have been linked to Jemaah Ansharut Daulah, an umbrella organisation on a US State Department “terrorist” list that is estimated to have drawn hundreds of IS sympathisers in Indonesia.
What’s more worrying, according to the Indonesian media, is that some of these attacks were the work of the so-called IS returnees from Syria.
In the Medan attack, which occurred on the first day of Hari Raya Aidilfitri, one of the attackers, Syawaluddin Pakpahan, 43, had spent six months in Syria in 2013.
“Concerns grow on IS returnees”, the English-language Jakarta Post said on its page one headline last Thursday.
It said the Indonesian government data showed that 152 IS returnees had gone to their respective hometowns across Indonesia between January and June this year.
This came after the 152 had undergone a one-month deradicalisation programme following their deportation by Turkish authorities.
The Jakarta Post said under the prevailing Terrorism Law, Indonesia cannot charge citizens for travelling to areas controlled by IS.
It only requires the returnees to attend the one-month deradicalisation course before being allowed to return to their families. Indonesian media said the effectiveness of such programmes remains to be seen.
Apparently, there are 2,691 people linked to terror groups currently under state surveillance, according to official data.
It is an uphill task to monitor each of their movements given the huge size of the archipelago. Often some of them returned to rejoin the radical groups after being spurned by their own families or their neighbours.
Indonesian police are also having a tough time locating one known militant, Bahrun Naim, whom they described as the mastermind behind a number of terror attacks in the country over the past few years.
One theory is that the man is now in Syria.
What can the Indonesian government or legislators do to deal with the growing number of IS returnees to Indonesia?
One proposal is to amend the Terrorism Law to enable the security agencies to criminally charge them.
But the amendment alone will take months or years to be passed by both Houses.
In the meantime, Indonesia’s neighbours, especially Malaysia and Singapore, must remain on high alert.
Although recent attacks in Indonesia have been badly organised, authorities believe some 400 Indonesians have joined IS in Syria.
This excludes a total of 95 Malaysian IS fighters in Syria, of which 30 have been killed.
Among those killed was Zainuri Kamaruddin, 50, a leader of Katibah Nusantara which is a Malay-speaking branch of IS. It groups together fighters from Malaysia, Indonesia and the southern Philippines, and it declared war on the Malaysian government last year.
On a bigger picture, we must also be wary of the current push by the IS into the southern Philippines.
The terror group, apparently, had called on followers in Southeast Asia to go to the southern Philippines or specifically to the town of Marawi if they cannot travel to Syria.
This region and the world at large must stand united to deal with all threats of terrorism including from IS.
IS must not be allowed to take root in Southeast Asia. Right now, IS thrives on the disaffection of Muslim minorities and fringe communities, and young Muslim activists who exploit their Islamic identity.
The potent combination of the disgruntled and the opportunists will continue to harm regional peace and security.
The writer feels in a digital world, the winner does not always take all.