Word: indonesianness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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When she was widowed two years ago, most people in the Javanese village of Babakan Ciwaringin expected Nyai Yu Masriyah Amva to marry again. They also assumed that the local pesantran, or traditional Indonesian Islamic boarding school, would close with the death of her husband, its head Islamic scholar. Neither happened. Bucking tradition, Amva decided that she would run the school. "If men can do it, then why can't I?" the 48-year-old recalls praying. "If you, Allah, are the source of all power, then why do I have to find someone else to run it? Just give...
...addition to these high-profile raids and shoot-outs, Indonesian task forces have focused on a quieter form of battle: winning the hearts and minds of potential extremists by infiltrating their cells and preaching an alternative path or packing them off to re-education camps. The four-year pause in terrorist activity in Indonesia seemed to prove the success of such tactics...
...There's also the question of how Noordin was able to elude capture for so long, operating with impunity across the Indonesian archipelago but presumably spending much of his time on the populated island of Java. Unlike, say, parts of Pakistan's frontier, where central authorities don't dare to roam because of tribal activity, Java is firmly under Indonesian control. Yet a network of Islamic militants and sympathizers kept the Malaysian shielded, while he resided in several villages. Reports even trickled out of Noordin's recent marriages to young women in Java, one in the aftermath of the July...
...Jakarta, for instance, was only 18. Other key planners of the July attacks are believed to include former students at JI-linked pesantrens, or Islamic schools. In a comprehensive report released last month, the International Crisis Group (ICG), an influential terror and conflict watchdog, warned: "If officials of the [Indonesian] religious affairs ministry visit these schools, as they periodically do, and announce there is nothing amiss, it is because they are not looking in the right place...
...Finally, as the ICG report also pointed out, there's the worrisome specter of foreign funding, which appears to have been a crucial ingredient in the July bombings. In particular, Indonesian police are zeroing in on possible money flows from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The increased integration of Indonesian terror into a global network will make it harder for even the most diligent of Indonesian anti-terror task forces to monitor extremist Islamic activity at home - despite the reported demise of a man as influential as Noordin Mohammed...