Deradicalizing ISIS Orphans in Indonesia
"We teach them that Islam is a peaceful religion an that jihad is about building, not destroying."
"It's natural for the children to want revenge for their parents' deaths."
"They were taught to hate the Indonesian state because it is against the caliphate."
Khairul Ghazali, terrorism renounced in favour of rehabilitation, Medan, Indonesia
"We spend all this time working with them, but if they go back to where they came from, radicalism can enter their hearts very quickly."
"It makes me worried."
Sri Musfiah, senior social worker, Indonesia
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| This picture taken on May 10, 2019 shows children, whose parents were suicide bombers or involved in terror plots, in a mosque at a safe house in Jakarta. AFP |
Following the U.S. special forces raid on the Islamic State leader Baghdadi's compound in northern Syria just across the border from Turkey, before the successful, retreating U.S. forces took to their helicopters with the corpse of the terrorist leader to bury him at sea as they had done Osama bin Laden, they had with them eleven children plucked from the compound before it was destroyed. Their mothers had been discovered, dead, shot in the head, their suicide vests not detonated. Their father dead as well, they are orphans.
More orphans to add to the toll of the Islamic State stalwarts who have died over the years while faithfully carrying out the instructions of Islamic State to butcher and rape. And what to do with children whose parents have been committed Islamists who taught their offspring the sterling qualities of violent Islamist jihad, children who absorbed the ideals of terrorism believing it to be fulfilling the sacred instructions handed down to their parents and all self-respecting Muslims to obey the commands of Islam, beginning and ending with jihad?
There are some countries like Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia that have developed deprogramming missions in the hope of being able to turn adults, much less children, away from their chosen path of violent extremism. Their record is a mixed one of partial success. In the instance of children whose loving parents whom they trusted and looked to for emotional support, how successful can it be to institute a learning program teaching children their parents' example was wrong, and those who fought them are intent on teaching them otherwise?
Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim majority nation, where many of its nationals saw fit to travel to Syria to join Islamic State, while many others remained right in Indonesia to do Islamic State work in the country itself, has seen a number of specialized 'schools', madrasas, open with a mission to deradicalize the children of militants. Like the little girl who at age 7 was bundled on a motorcycle with her mother and brother, her father and other brother on another motorcycle, both equipped with bombs the children were told were coconut rice wrapped in banana leaves.
Driving toward a police station in the Indonesian city of Surabaya where other faiths besides Islam are practised, the bombs were set off at the gate of the police station, killing the family, but no one else, while sparing the life of the little girl. Catapulted from the motorcycle the child emerged alive, unhurt, an orphan. She is now enrolled in a deradicalization program operated by the Indonesian Ministry of Social Affairs in Jakarta. Her schoolmates are other children similarly left orphans.
In Indonesia, the reality is that thousands of vulnerable children indoctrinated by their parents, now dead, but many more alive, call out for a solution. Khairul Ghazali, five years imprisoned for terrorism-related crimes renounced violence and now respectably operations an Islamic school in Medan, on Sumatra. He draws on experience as a former extremist to help him in his mission to deradicalize the children of terrorists. A mere one hundred children have thus far attended formal Indonesian deradicalization programs.
His own madrasa which receives significant government support for its work, is able to teach only 25 children at a time, up through middle school. Follow up by government is minimal. "The children are not tracked and monitored when they leave", noted Alto Labetubun, a terrorism analyst in Indonesia. Indonesian counterterrorism police had tangled with about half of Mr. Khairul's students' parents, killing them.
One day, some boys spoke of their worldview at Mr. Khairul's Medan madrasa, with all the boys in the class agreeing that Indonesia should be an Islamic state. They were asked what about the churches among the mosques in mixed-religion Medan? A 12-year-old boy raised his hands to mimic the shock of an explosion, and he said "Bomb".
"It hasn't been easy dealing with [the children] because they believed in radicalism... and that bombing was a good thing."
"They were taught that jihad was essential to go to heaven and that you must kill non-believers. It was very hard to change that mindset."
Neneng Heryani, head, safe-house, Jakarta
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| An Indonesian family who escaped from the Islamic State group in Raqqa gather inside their tent at a refugee camp in Ain Issa in northeastern Syria, July 24, 2017. |
Labels: Deradicalization, Indonesia, ISIS Orphans, Islamic State, Repatriation
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, October 29, 2019
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