Australian report predicted violence in Indonesia

ADELAIDE, Australia — An Australian think tank predicted that Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah might launch new attacks just a day before Friday’s deadly hotel bombings in Indonesia.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute said in a paper released Thursday that tensions in the group’s leadership and the release of former members from prison “raise the possibility that splinter factions might now seek to re-energize the movement through violent attacks.”

It said, however, that the possibility remained low.

Less than 24 hours after the report was released, two explosions rocked hotels in Jakarta, Indonesia, killing at least eight people. There has been no claim of responsibility.

Jemaah Islamiyah has been responsible for a series of attacks in Indonesia, including the October 2002 bombings of two Bali nightclubs that killed some 202 people, many of them foreign tourists.

The Australian report said the group has limited its support for violence in recent years and suffered a loss of supporters due to arrests and internal disputes.

“However, the emergence of hardened, experienced militants from the conflict in the southern Philippines and the recent release of JI cadres from prisons in Indonesia, who have become ostracized by the mainstream JI group, are breeding a new generation of radicalized fringe groups,” the paper said.

“There is evidence that some of these individuals are gravitating toward hard-line groups who continue to advocate al-Qaida-style attacks against Western targets,” it concluded.

One of the authors, national security project director Carl Ungerer, said he believed young dissident members of Jemaah Islamiyah could be behind Friday’s attacks.

“They believe that the continuation of a bombing campaign would be the only way that they would achieve their political objectives,” Ungerer told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. “The smaller splinter groups, who are intent on a violent bombing campaign, retain the capability to do this sort of thing.”

Ungerer could not immediately be reached by The Associated Press.