There is a Sabah connection to the fatal suicide bombings at Jolo Cathedral in 2019 and Makassar Church in 2021.
The perpetrators of the bombings, in which 23 people were killed and more than 100 were injured in the southern Philippines and 20 people were injured in Indonesia, are linked to an Indonesian family who lived inland Sabah for about two months.
The rise in family extremism, defined as the personal ties linking militants across the region, is responsible for the two-year suicide bombings in the two neighboring countries.
“The attacks in both Indonesia and the Philippines can be categorized as an action mobilized by a group with strong family ties and organized by two cross-border groups, namely JAD (Jemaah Ansharut Daulah) in Indonesia and Abu Sayyaf on the Philippines. ”Says Stanislaus Riyanta, a security and terrorism expert from Jakarta.
Former Sabah Police Commissioner Datuk Hazani Ghazali said police are closely monitoring foreign threats in the state.
“The three nations – Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines – exchange information and we coordinate with them. We arrested foreign terrorists in the state for sharing information, ”said Hazani, who was promoted to director of homeland security and public order on Thursday.
The Indonesian couple responsible for the suicide bombings in Jolo, Rullie Rian Zeke, 35, and his wife Ulfah Handayani Saleh, 32, met on January 27, 2019 during mass in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Jolo in blown up.
Aftermath: Police are inspecting the area near a church that was attacked by JAD fighters in Makassar in March this year. – APBack in their hometown of Makassar, the capital of Sulawesi, Indonesia, Rullie and Ulfah were cell members of JAD, an Indonesian group with ties to the Islamic State (IS). The couple made a living selling nasi kuning (yellow rice). They joined the JAD because of family ties with the leadership of the group in South Sulawesi.
Stanislaus says the leader of the JAD in Makassar was Mohammad Rizaldy S., Ulfah’s 46-year-old brother.
On January 6 of this year, Indonesian security forces killed Mohammad Rizaldy and his 23-year-old son-in-law Sanjai Azis in a raid in Makassar. Authorities also arrested 18 JAD members, including Ainun Preety, the daughter of Rullie and Ulfah.
Two months later, Muhammad Lukman, 26, and his wife Yogi Sahfitri Fortuna @ Dewi, 26, were killed when Yogi set off a bomb in front of the Sacred Heart Cathedral of Makassar at the end of the Palm Sunday service on March 28.
Muhammad and Yogi were part of the JAD cell in Makassar. Cell chief Mohammad Rizaldy celebrated the marriage between the two suicide bombers in August 2020.
“It was revenge for the murder of Mohammad Rizaldy and Sanjai. Muhammad Lukman and Yogi were upset that the JAD had not carried out any bombing in recent years and still two JAD members were killed by the Indonesian police, ”says a regional intelligence source whose identity we cannot reveal.
Stanislaus explains that the Makassar suicide bombers were being pursued by Indonesian authorities who were pursuing JAD members in the capital of Sulawesi.
“They acted in the form of jihad – instead of getting caught, they decided to commit suicide bombings,” he says.
The Indonesian police have identified Saefullah (alias Danial or Chaniago), who has close contacts with pro-IS groups in Indonesia, especially JAD, as the mastermind behind the Makassar attack. Saefullah, an Indonesian believed to be in Afghanistan or Pakistan, has also been linked to the 2019 Jolo attack.
The Jolo suicide bombers were influenced by Andi Baso, 21, who later became their son-in-law, to travel from Sulawesi to nearby Sabah.
“It is believed that Andi influenced and arranged the journey and actions of Rullie and Ulfah,” says Stanislaus.
Andi is a JAD figure with strong connections to IS and Abu Sayyaf – a group with which the Indonesian radical group has had a long relationship. Andi received instructions from JAD mastermind Saefullah, says Stanislaus.
The source says Andi is a mediator: “Saefullah did not give Andi direct instructions, but rather transmitted them through Suryadi Masud, an influential Indonesian militant based in Jakarta.
“Andi is not the main character. There is an excerpt, someone who says to him: They meet one way or another, and he goes to the meeting. He receives instructions directly from Indonesia, ”he says.
On November 13, 2016, Andi planned a church attack that killed a toddler in Samarinda, East Kalimantan. Persecuted by Indonesian security forces, he fled to neighboring Sabah in late 2016 or early 2017. He landed in Bingkor, Keningau, an inland district of Sabah about 120 km from Kota Kinabalu. In Bingkor, the refugee worked odd jobs to raise money for his illegal activities.
In November 2018, Rullie and Ulfah, Jolo’s suicide bombers, and their children – Rezky Fantasya Rullie @ Cici, 17; Ahmad @ Ibrahim, 11; and Aisyah, nine – traveled from Makassar to Tarakan, then Kalabakan and finally Keningau, where they lived less than two months before setting off on their final destination – Jolo Island to carry out the suicide bombing.
“I don’t think Saefullah’s orders (to Rullie and Ulfah to go to Jolo) were direct, but of course there was coordination with Abu Sayyaf.
“The driving factor wasn’t someone’s instructions, but the tense situation the couple found themselves in, and so they finally decided to act as a form of jihad,” says Stanislaus.
“After failing to reach Syria and then being deported to Indonesia, Rullie and Ulfah fled to Sabah. That would not have been an easy thing – they certainly did not want to be considered desperate and they did not choose to be considered ‘martyrs’. “
In March 2016, the couple and their children traveled from Indonesia to Turkey, where they tried to enter Syria to join IS fighters.
“But when they came from Turkey, they were caught and deported to Indonesia. Then they decided to go to the Philippines – they were smuggled through Malaysia by migrant workers in oil palm plantations in Sabah. When they arrived in the Philippines, they carried out the bombing of Jolo after joining Abu Sayyaf, ”explains Stanislaus.
The source says Rullie and Ulfah were low-tier JAD foot soldiers.
“You were already indoctrinated. There was no need to motivate them to come to Sabah and then travel to Jolo. You have been identified as a potential suicide bomber.
“Then Andi and the Jolo bombers were connected because they are part of the JAD cell in Makassar,” he says.
In November 2018 Andi married the 17-year-old daughter Rezky of the Jolo assassins in Bingkor, Sabah: “It was an arranged marriage. If you are a JAD member, you would like your daughter to marry another JAD member.
“It’s like a cult system. Mixed marriages with each other. No outsiders because they don’t understand the mission, ”explains the source.
For the Jolo mission in Jolo, Rezky was not forced to fight for the Abu Sayyaf against the Filipino security forces, because “once you are married, you follow what your husband wants you to do,” he says.
In December 2018, Ulfah, their children Rezky and Ahmad, and their son-in-law Andi, together with two other JAD fighters in Bingkor, the IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, swore allegiance. Rullie had previously sworn allegiance to al-Baghdadi.
In the middle of the same month, Rullie set out for the southern Philippines. A few weeks later, Ulfah and her three children as well as Andi traveled to Jolo via Sabah. They traveled from Sandakan to Taganak in the southern Philippines, to Bongao, the capital of Tawi Tawe Province, and then to Jolo Island.
The source says the Indonesian couple went to Jolo to carry out suicide bombings – “But they didn’t know where and when. Your host, the Abu Sayyaf, decided where and when. “
The Rullie family lived in Patikul in the Philippines with the Sawadjaan group, also known as Jemaah Abu Sayyaf, under Hajan Sawadjaan. Hajan’s nephew is Mundi Sawadjaan, an aspiring subordinate who wanted to make a name for himself.
“Every foreign militant – whether Indonesian, Syrian, Uighur or Egyptian – who comes to Jolo has to report to either Hajan Sawadjaan or Mundi Sawadjaan in order to get protection,” says the source.
According to him, Mundi made it easier for Rullie and Ulfah to attack Jolo Cathedral by providing suicide bomber vests and logistical support as Abu Sayyaf’s subordinate wanted to become the next ISIS emir in the southern Philippines.
“To be a leader, you have to do something radical. This is how the name Mundi appears. If he’s the most wanted man in the Philippines, he’ll become more popular. So he can get more support, ”says the source.
He thinks it is wrong to say that Hajan was responsible for the bombings on Jolo Cathedral.
“Hajan was number one in the hierarchy of the Zavadjaan group and didn’t have to prove anything. Mundi comes along and has to prove himself to get more members, more money and more power, ”he says, adding that Abu Sayyaf does not generally commit suicide bombings.
The suicide bombings by Jolo and Makassar were the work of the JAD cell in Makassar, says Stanislaus.
“There are kinships and family relationships – the Makassar JAD group is united mainly because of ideological ties and family ties,” he says.
Sabah is the transit point that connected the JAD fighters in Makassar with the armed men of Abu Sayyaf in Jolo. And the result of this connection was two tragic bomb attacks.
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