ISIS Unveiled: The Story Behind Indonesia’s First Female

Suicide Bomber
Charlie Campbell / Jakarta, Semarang and Solo
Mar 03, 2017

there is a flawed relationship between size and power. Bears and lions provoke fear,
yet the mosquito is the more ferocious killer. Humans can be similar. Take Dian Yulia
Novi. She stands less than 5 ft. tall, but her true power is in her will. And in the pressure
cooker packed with explosives she planned to detonate at Indonesia’s presidential
palace. Recruited online by the Islamic State (ISIS), she was determined to die as a
martyr for global jihad. Until her arrest on Dec. 10, the 27-year-old was set to become
the first female suicide bomber in the world’s most-populous Muslim-majority nation.
“In Islam, men and women are different,” she tells TIME in an exclusive interview at
Kelapa Dua prison, south of Jakarta. “But now, jihad is mandatory for all Muslims,
just like praying. Everyone must do jihad.”Dian is friendly and chatty, wearing a long
dark brown hijab and gray gloves, which occasionally bring a small bottle of eucalyptus
oil to her covered nose. “For nausea,” she says. Only her dark, piercing eyes are visible
through her full-face niqab veil, a habit she picked up during a stint as a migrant
worker in Taiwan. That was also where she was radicalized online. Indonesia has
battled for decades against homegrown Islamic extremism, but ISIS presents an
entirely new challenge, inciting “lone wolf” attacks and propelling women into the
front line for the first time. A few days after Dian’s arrest, another woman, Ika
Puspitasari, was arrested for plotting a suicide bombing in the tourist island of Bali on
New Year’s Eve. “Nowadays more men are hiding from waging jihad,” says Dian. “So
why can’t a woman volunteer?”
The rise of ISIS comes as Indonesia’s fledgling, secular democracy is increasingly
under threat from a resurgent Islamist right. While Europe has so far felt the brunt of
ISIS-inspired terrorist plots, these forces threaten to turn the Southeast Asian nation
of 250 million into a maelstrom of radicalization. In a 2014 survey, Indonesian scholar
Al Chaidar recorded 2 million ISIS followers in Indonesia. More than 600 Indonesians
are currently fighting with ISIS in Syria, helping to spread the group’s warped ideology
to compatriots back home. Their goal is a Southeast Asian caliphate governed by
Shari‘a, similar to that hewed in the dusty borderlands of Iraq and Syria by ISIS. And
with more than 191 million Indonesian Muslims targeted by ISIS as potential recruits,
the tiniest uptick in radical support could have hitherto unseen repercussions across
the planet.
Indonesia’s Islamists traditionally struck from jungle hideouts across its vast
archipelago of 6,000 inhabited islands, mirroring the Pattani-Malay insurgents of
Thailand and the Moro rebels of the Philippines. But in recent years, the nation’s
burgeoning migrant worker community — toiling in factories and glitzy apartment
buildings predominantly in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Saudi Arabia — has
proved especially vulnerable to online radicalization, with serious repercussions for
global security.
“The challenge now is we can’t identify them,” says Siti Dorojatul "Dete" Aliah, director
of Jakarta’s Institute for International Peace Building, who has interviewed more than
50 female jihadis. “Maybe there are many Dian Yulia Novi scattered around Indonesia.
We don’t know how to approach them because they don’t belong to any groups.”
In January last year, five ISIS devotees attacked a Starbucks in central Jakarta with
bombs and guns, leaving seven dead including the attackers. In July, a botched suicide
bombing at a police station in central Java killed the attacker and injured one officer.
In November, police foiled a plot to bomb the Myanmar embassy in Jakarta. These
attacks broke seven years of relative calm since the last major attack by Jemaah
Islamiyah (JI), Indonesia’s al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group. But now new recruits
— often self-indoctrinated online like Dian — are being targeted by fanatical JI splinter
cells. Three such groups have claimed to represent ISIS in Indonesia, of which the
most prominent is Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD).
JAD ensnared Dian. But her jihad ended unsuccessfully after a raid by Indonesia’s elite
antiterrorism squad, Detachment 88, at the boarding house she had rented three days
earlier in the Bekasi district, east of Jakarta. “JAD has a network in Bekasi,”
Detachment 88 chief Edi Hartono tells TIME in a rare interview. Dian’s landlord, who
asked to simply be called Andy, didn’t suspect anything untoward when this slight
young woman paid cash for Room 104, around 20 sq m of whitewashed walls
and Finding Nemo bathroom tiles. And he certainly didn’t expect the monumental
cleanup job around the corner. Dian kept largely to herself, each morning pottering
across to the small warung, or eatery, opposite the building that dolls out bowls of
mung-bean porridge. “But we did notice five strange men hanging around
the warung next door,” Andy tells TIME, surveying the spot where a controlled
explosion demolished half his wall.
Those men were Detachment 88 officers, who had been monitoring Dian for some
time. When she went to a nearby post office, they followed and retrieved the package
she mailed to her parents in their hometown of Cirebon in northwest Java. It contained
some clothes and her will, which simply said she had left them “to do good deeds.” The
officers then followed Dian as she was driven by two men back to the boarding house,
exiting the car with a black backpack. When the officers knocked on the door, Dian
was reading the Quran. “The bomb arrived in the morning, and the police arrested me
that same day,” she laughs.
Dian — like disaffected young Muslims the world over — was radicalized online, but
she had some very real-world conspirators. One was Nur Solihin, who was recruited
by Bahrun Naim, the most infamous Indonesian fighting with ISIS in Syria. Bahrun is
JAD’s chief provocateur and he ordered Nur Solihin to find a “bride” for a suicide
bombing. He also gave the order for Dian to attack the presidential palace during the
changing of the guard. The bomb contained the explosive materials triacetine
triperoxide and glycerin, designed to send the accompanying 3 kg of 5-cm nails
barreling through flesh up to 300 m away at 5,300 m per second. A similar device was
used in the Boston Marathon bombing of April 15, 2013, which claimed three lives and
injured hundreds more. “Presidential security protects the President, who applies the
law created by people,” says Dian. “They replace the Quranic law with human law. Do
you think that’s not breaking Shari‘a?”
The call for Shari‘a to be implemented in Indonesia represents a challenge to its secular
founding tenets. Since the end of colonial rule in 1945, Indonesia’s leaders have
guarded against religious extremism through the state ideology of Pancasila — belief
in one God, a just and civilized humanity, national unity, democracy through
deliberation, and social justice for all. But Islamist groups that were repressed, often
brutally, under postcolonial authoritarian governments have become louder and more
influential since democratization in 1998.
The most prominent of these is the Islamic Defenders Front (known by its Indonesian
initials FPI), which has taken to the streets in recent months in an attempt to oust
Jakarta's governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, who is an ethnic Chinese Christian.
Popularly known by his Hakka nickname Ahok, he is fighting a blasphemy charge after
he told a crowd that they had been “lied to” by hard-line Muslims, like FPI’s firebrand
leader Rizieq Shihab, who cite a Quranic verse as supposed proof that Muslims should
not have a Christian leader. “Today, Islamist groups like FPI are the most influential
part of Indonesian civil society,” says Sidney Jones, director of the Jakarta-based
Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC). “For a democratic society, that’s very
frightening.”
'They are ready to die'
For Indonesia’s police chief Tito Karnavian, groups like FPI are troublesome because,
he says, members can easily make the jump into terrorist groups or become lone-wolf
attackers. “FPI talk about establishing Islamic Shari‘a in Indonesia, and this is also one
of the objectives of terrorist groups,” he tells TIME over coffee and cake in his Jakarta
home. “They want to create a caliphate — Daulah Islam — so they have a common
interest. They both think the state apparatus is the enemy.”

Tito is Indonesia’s real-life action hero. Less than a week after becoming the nation’s
top cop in July, he joined a special task force that killed Indonesia's most-wanted
terrorist, Santoso, in the steamy jungle of Central Sulawesi province. He previously led
the national counterterrorism agency and Detachment 88, where he helped dismantle
the JI network after the 2002 Bali bombings, and in 2010 launched a raid on a militant
training camp in Aceh, which led to the arrest of JI founder Abu Bakar Bashir and chief
JAD ideologue Aman Abdurrahman. Enormous posters of Tito in military fatigues
hang outside police stations across Indonesia. “I’ve done all types of police work,
including murder, then armed robbery, then drugs. But terrorism is the apex of
criminality,” he says, eyes suddenly sparkling. “Because they are ready to die and are
actually seeking death.”
It would be wrong to characterize Indonesians as overly prone to radicalism. Despite
the several hundreds fighting with ISIS in Syria, proportionally they are one of the
least represented nations: just two ISIS fighters per million of population, compared
to 27 for Denmark or 40 for Belgium. But Indonesia’s sheer size means even a slight
increase could have calamitous consequences. And for Tito, the U.S. drawdown in the
Middle East, combined with Russia’s increasingly prominent role supporting
embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad, spells problems — perhaps leading to the
end for ISIS in the Middle East. While that is, of course, desirable per se, it would likely
mean hundreds of battle-hardened fanatics swarming home. “The threat, of course, is
considerable,” says Tito. ”Firstly, because the radical mind-set is already in place.
Secondly, the military capability.”
Indonesia has weathered such storms before. But while only 197 JI operatives joined
al-Qaeda training camps across Afghanistan and Pakistan, returning home following
the U.S.-backed invasion, more than three times that number fight with ISIS today.
Says Tito: “So you see the magnitude of the threat.”
One augmented by the influence of oil-rich Saudi Arabia, which is the biggest exporter
of religious education to Indonesia today. Many millions of Saudi dollars are funneled
into institutions that preach its very conservative, literal brand of “Wahhabi” Salafism.
This stokes animosity toward other faiths and branches of Islam, especially
Indonesia’s 2.5 million-strong Shi‘ite community, which has increasingly fallen
victim to sporadic violence. Former U.S. President Barack Obama, who attended SDN
Menteng 01, a public elementary school in Jakarta, from 1969 to '71, has described his
dismay as Indonesia’s relaxed, pluralistic Islam has gradually stiffened into a more
fundamentalist, uncompromising version since an influx of Saudi cash in the 1990s.
FPI, for one, is modeled on the Saudi religious police, performing a similar role as
overbearing moral guardian. FPI leader Rizieq attended the Saudi Islamic and Arabic
College of Indonesia in Jakarta before gaining a Saudi state scholarship to continue
his studies in Riyadh.
High-profile groups like FPI do not openly advocate terrorist acts,
though they are far from a passive force. Tito has even
accused Bachtiar Nasir, chairman of the National Movement to
Safeguard the Indonesian Ulema Council’s Fatwa (GNPF-MUI), the
key backer of anti-Ahok protests, of embezzling funds for a pro-ISIS
group in Turkey. And other than organizing enormous public
demonstrations, FPI is one of Indonesia’s leading proponents of
“sweeping,” which refers to supporters gathering around businesses
to harass staff and customers against behavior that is contrary to
Shari‘a, such as consuming alcohol or employing female staff in what
FPI considers skimpy attire.
Sweeping has often been used by shady business owners, who pay
mobs under the guise of religious righteousness to undermine
competitors. FPI’s own sweeping has even extended to shops that
requested Muslim employees to don Santa hats in the run-up to
Christmas. Encouraging vigilante action to enforce societal piety can
be taken to the next level by radical elements. “I’m here because I
want to defend Islam,” says Al Fatih, 15, from Depok district south of
Jakarta, at an FPI rally outside the Jakarta police headquarters in
late January. Asked whether he would defend Islam abroad, Al Fatih
doesn’t hesitate: “Of course.”
'I was curious about some accounts that liked jihad'
Indonesia is the world’s fourth-most populous country, and about
4.5 million citizens — mostly women — work overseas as migrant
laborers. A reputation as smart, friendly and industrious means
many are invited into private homes as domestic helpers. They enjoy
fast-tracked visa applications, though a lack of protections mean they
are frequently victims of physical, mental and sexual abuse. Laboring
for long hours and estranged from friends and family, many seek
solace and companionship in online forums. Some, like Dian, want
to learn more about Islam but stumble upon extremist doctrine. No
attacks have so far been launched in host countries, but that may
change. In July, Detachment 88 foiled an elaborate plot to strike
Singapore’s plush Marina Bay Sands hotel and casino complex with
an offshore rocket (Bahrun is believed to have been the orchestrator).
Singaporean authorities said in December that they had deported
almost 70 suspected radicals over the past two years. “There are
basically radical cells in most Indonesian migrant communities
abroad,” says Jones.
Dian says she never communicated with local ISIS supporters during
her time as a migrant worker. In 2011, she worked as a maid looking
after the younger children of a high school teacher in Singapore,
earning $150 a month. Her favorite child was called Ye Ye. “She was
5 years old,” Dian recalls fondly, “She was this cute, chubby Chinese
kid.” But when her employer decided to move to China, Dian chose
to go home, fearful of the cold weather. Then in 2013 she took a job
at a retirement home in Taiwan, where she quadrupled her previous
salary. She says the home’s managers were “tolerant” and didn’t
object when she began wearing a full-face niqab. But a combination
 of long hours and more disposable income meant she spent more
time engrossed in her snazzy new smartphone. “Like any young
person, I used social media like Facebook,” says Dian. “I was curious
about some accounts that liked jihad. So I spied on them and sent
messages. Some of them replied me, some did not.”

Attack in Jakarta: Bombs and Gunfire in Indonesia's Capital

The first account that did reply was a woman who lived in Syria. She struck up a
rapport with Dian, and, via other like-minded ISIS sympathizers, that led her to talk
with Nur Solihin. After Dian agreed to be a suicide bomber, they got married using the
popular Telegram messaging app. According to Shari‘a, there’s no requirement that a
woman has to attend her own wedding ceremony. “I’d never met my husband before,”
says Dian. “We decided to get married not because of the caliphate but we have the
same intention to do jihad.” The two had never even exchanged photographs.
Nur Solihin was already married to another woman, though she
apparently didn’t raise objections to the new match. “I don’t think
so,” laughs Dian when asked about the other wife’s reaction. “I met
her and everything was just so-so.” When Dian returned to the
boarding house, Nur Solihin and another conspirator, Agus Supriydi,
drove their Daihatsu Ayla to scope out the presidential palace,
picking out an area near a bus stop where Dian would set off with her
bomb. They then drove back to join Dian but were arrested by
Detachment 88 en route. Dian and Nur Solihin had only met three
times.
It’s one of the many contradictions of ISIS that a group whose
medieval precepts prohibit innovation utilizes technology so deftly.
Practically every social app on the market is used to communicate
and share the group’s eschatological propaganda, from Twitter and
Facebook to messaging platforms — encrypted and otherwise — like
Telegram, Surespot, Threema, Kik and WhatsApp. But apart from
Hollywood-esque videos and bomb-dropping drones, social media is
frequently used to perform jihadi weddings. This brings women into
their traditional jihadi support roles, as the wives, sisters and
mothers of male actors. However, ISIS’s distorting of ideology has
conferred a murderous promotion. In Syria, ISIS has an all-female
al-Khansaa Brigade that operates as a religious police. “ISIS used
women because they want to shame the men,” says Dete. “They say,
‘If women can do jihad, what about you guys?’”
Despite their front-line roles, Dete still considers women like Dian
victims, given that they are not involved in the plotting of attacks or
even selection of targets. Because while the Internet is a useful tool
for recruiting willing martyrs, the key players retain their links to
Indonesia’s storied ideologues. And they typically hail from one
place: the central Java city of Surakarta, commonly known as Solo.
Nur Solihin used to run a radical Islamist blog here, while Agus
Supriydi is also a local. The sprawling city of 500,000 is the home of
Indonesian President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, a
former carpenter who first grew to national prominence by
becoming its mayor. But Bahrun is another famous Solo son, and the
city has an undisputed reputation as ground zero for Indonesia’s
jihadist movement.
'Maybe there’s one or two good things about them'
Al-Mukmin Islamic boarding school is home to 1,300 children in
Solo’s Ngruki neighborhood. The boys’ classrooms and dormitories
ring soccer and basketball courts, while on the opposite side of a large
central mosque are the single-story girls’ quarters, which flank a leafy
garden of caladium and gold capella. All students learn Arabic and
English, which they are keen to practice with peculiar Western
visitors, firing off questions as bubbly and boisterous as teenagers
anywhere. There is genuine affection between pupils and teachers,
who jovially goad their more timid charges to join in. Classwork lines
the corridor walls, including one school project on Bali, Indonesia’s
majority Hindu tourist island of Eat, Pray Love fame. “Bali is known
for its beaches,” writes the tidy copperplate script. “Kuta and Legian
are a paradise for surfers and known for their funky nightlife zone.”
That nightlife was shattered on the evening of Oct. 12, 2002,
when three bombs ripped through the center of Kuta, killing 202
people and injuring 209 more. It remains Indonesia’s worst terrorist
attack. Almost half the dead were Australian tourists. A recorded
voice message purported to be al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden
claimed the bombings were retaliation for Canberra’s support for the
U.S. war on terrorism and assisting East Timor’s liberation from
Indonesian rule. But the perpetrators came from closer to home:
nine of those linked with the attack were graduates from Al-Mukmin,
including the ringleader, Ali Ghufron (alias Muklas), who was one of
three conspirators eventually executed.
Al-Mukmin was founded by Abu Bakar Bashir, considered the
spiritual head of JI. Bashir was jailed for supporting terrorism in
2011 and publicly pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-
Baghdadi three years later. Former Al-Mukmin teachers include
Riduan Isamuddin, better known by the nom de guerre Hambali, the
former JI military leader currently in extrajudicial detention at
Guantanamo Bay. Five Al-Mukmin graduates were involved in the
2003 Marriot hotel bombings in Jakarta and another blew
himself up in the 2009 Jakarta attacks. The International Crisis
Group has dubbed the school the “Ivy League” for Indonesian
jihadists.
Arriving for our interview astride a chuntering motorbike, Rahim
looks younger than his 40 years, and carries himself with the relaxed
air of a man whose future holds no greater tribulations than his past.
That is perhaps unsurprising. According to a U.N. Security
Council resolution, he was a key al-Qaeda operative in Pakistan and
Afghanistan during the late 1990s and early 2000s and was “present
at a meeting of selected 9/11 hijackers in Afghanistan in May 2001
and likely participated in making the videos of their last wills and
testaments.”
Rahim tells TIME that he has no terrorist connections. However, he
admits that Al-Mukmin’s curriculum is the same from when his ISIS-
supporting father was in charge. “We teach [students] to love the
religion, Shari‘a, and to fight for and uphold Shari‘a, so nothing has
changed,” he says. Regarding ISIS, he insists he is opposed to its
caliphate. “We’ve always stated that we reject ISIS. The problem here
is we found one or two teachers have a different opinion [about ISIS].
I think that’s their right. But what we should deliver by good teaching
is telling the truth. So the students can see whether is it really good
or bad ... We cannot say that all members of ISIS are bad at all; maybe
there’s one or two good things about them.”
Such equivocation is hardly reassuring. According to Tito, while
there is nothing wrong with Al-Mukmin’s curriculum,
“extracurricular activities are a problem.” Tito says the school
preaches a Salafi jihadi ideology whereby an extra pillar is added to
the universal five pillars of Islam: jihad. Sure enough, slogans dotted
around the campus read: “Jihad Is Our Way of Life” and “Jihad Is
Right if It Frees the People.”
Jihad as a concept has many interpretations, including the spiritual
struggle within oneself against sin, and the fight to do good deeds to
promote Islam. However, says Tito, “Jihad for them is only
interpreted in one form: war and violence. And since jihad is
compulsory then failure to do it is a sin against God. Whether ISIS
supporters or al-Qaeda supporters in Indonesia, everyone in the
radical communities agrees that Syria is legitimate grounds for
jihad.”
Read More: Where Memes Could Kill: Indonesia's Worsening
Problem of Fake News
Jihad at home is different matter, and the major break between ISIS
and domestic jihadi groups such as JI — and even al-Qaeda — is their
attitude toward intentionally killing Muslims. For traditional
jihadists, that is a red line. But the takfiri ideology of ISIS — which
is distinct from but complements Salafi jihadism — brands all those
who fail to pledge allegiance to its caliphate apostate and thus kafir,
or “unbeliever.” Takfiris also believe that anyone who deliberately
kills himself (or herself) while attempting to slay enemies of Islam is
a martyr and goes straight to heaven. All sin is absolved with
martyrdom, conveniently making the indiscriminate killing of
noncombatants licit. For Dian, even her parents — local traders who
raised her as a Muslim and enrolled her in pengajian, or Quran-
reading, classes — are today's kafir. “My family is very wise. All their
advice is touching, and all is priceless,” she says. “[But] my parents
in terms of praying were not really practicing.”
And so Dian had few qualms about detonating her pressure-cooker
bomb at the presidential palace on a car-free Sunday afternoon with
multitudes of families milling by. “We were not targeting Muslims,”
Dian insists. “We were targeting kafir.”
'A way station to further glory'
Visitors to Semarang prison in north-central Java file into a long
room with a row of rickety wooden benches beneath a window of
metal bars and chicken wire. Prisoners appear across this divide in a
visitation chamber that doubles as a laundry room; rows of drying T-
shirts and underwear swing about their chattering heads. Endro
Sudarsono, the spokesperson for Laskar Umat Islam Solo (LUIS), a
popular Islamist group similar to FPI, has been here since Dec. 20
when he was arrested with seven others while “sweeping” a bar in
central Solo. “They say I will be here for six months,” he tells TIME.
“But we will continue this activity when we get out.”
Endro says he also attended FPI protests against Governor Ahok in
Jakarta, illustrating the blurred edges among these groups. It’s
common to be a member of several, with splinters forming when
individuals disagree with a particular facet of ideology or tactics.
Endro, for example, is the spokesperson for LUIS but also teaches
mathematics at Al-Mukmin. Nur Solihin belonged to terrorist group
JAD and also a local Islamist group in Solo called Azzam Dakwah
Center, of which ustad Sholeh, the Islamic-studies teacher at Al-
Mukmin, is a leading member. (According to Detachment 88 chief
Hartono, “Azzam Dakwah Center is a cover for JAD.”)
Read More: Indonesia's Overcrowded Prisons Are a Breeding
Ground for Islamic Extremism
Prison is a cauldron where these Islamist groups can mingle and
radical ideology ferment. Jailed fanatics use fatwas and other
pressure to stop fellow inmates joining deradicalization programs.
Pro-ISIS ideologue Aman Abdurrahman, imprisoned on Indonesia’s
Alcatraz-like Nusakambangan prison island since the 2010 Aceh
raid, has published several books from behind bars that are
considered de rigueur for aspiring jihadis. These tomes are then
reproduced on extremist websites, where they are afforded a heft
almost of scripture. A die-hard takfiri, Aman has forbidden his
followers from cooperating with “kafir” institutions like the
government, police or prison officers. Understaffed and poorly paid,
guards are too intimidated to intervene. “Our interviews reveal that
for Indonesian jihadists, a spell in prison, rather than being an
intervention stage, is seen as a way station to further glory,” reads a
recent report by the Brookings Institute. “Many leave prison not only
unreformed, but also more influential in local jihadi circles.”
The pro-ISIS screeds of prison radicals often home in on U.S. foreign
policy. Most recently, that has included U.S. President Donald
Trump’s attempts to ban visitors from seven Muslim-majority
countries. According to Cameron Sumpter, an Indonesian terrorism
specialist at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, the ban
“should be seen as a gift to ISIS and the broader jihadi movement.”
Dian is quick to agree. “It’s good that Donald Trump exists,” she says.
“We know now that America is the real enemy. There will be a war
between Muslims and the USA.” Asked about the Muslim ban, she
laughs: “If it proves impossible [to implement], then we can destroy
America.” Would Dian detonate a bomb overseas? “Sure, we can do
that.”
Sequestered in Kelapa Dua prison, Dian is no longer a threat to
anyone, though she has other things on her mind: like being three
months pregnant. Normally a vegetarian, she now tucks heartily into
a bowl of bakso — meatball soup. One of those fleeting encounters
with her new husband, while they plotted the deaths of innocents,
sparked life. “Thanks be to God,” she says. It has also likely spared
Dian the death penalty. One more life that was to be sacrificed for the
caliphate — though one that has now saved her own.