Jakarta Attacks 'Mastermind' Caused Family to Lose Business

Bahrun Naim is identified as a man originating from Pasar Kliwon, Solo and managed to get into law enforcers radar in 2010 following reports of him owning thousands of ammunitions such as firearms. Court then reached verdict on jailing him for 2,5 years in June 2011 over possession of thousands of illegal firearms ammunition charges.

He was released in 2012 and went underground for a while that he became unheard of. Throughout the period in which he went ‘missing’, police claimed to have been detecting his whereabouts and the result led to Syria. He has been accused of departing to the region in an attempt to join the Islamic State (IS) group.

Officials also claimed that 23-year-old Siti Lestari, a student from Muhammadiyah University in Surakarta, was also taken along to Syria to join his misleading venture in the region.

Chief of Indonesian Police Badrodin Haiti confirmed the fact that authorities have settled Bahrun’s status as alleged terror-crafter of the attacks in Sarinah, Thamrin Jakarta and is likely to be linked to the notoriously know terrorist network ISIS by helping the group expand in influence and prominence in the region.

“Bahrun’s group is linked to ISIS network the way Poso network did in the past,” he said.

“He was captured back in 2010 as he attempted to terrorize the U.S President Barack Obama during his visitation to the country which was cancelled due to other incident,” he added.

If there is another reason to make Bahrun Naim a guilty man then it would be his glorification over extremism and the terrorist group which thinks so highly of it through his website Bahrunnaim.co that was recently blocked by the Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Information Technology.

His website encourages others to support terrorist undertakings through extensive analysis on enemy’s (authorities) strength and weaknesses especially the intelligence agency, theoretically expressed strategies to counter-attack them which were included in the web’s sub-segments avoiding intel’s ‘buffling’ (interference) and constructing chain of command system, methods to be exploited in carrying out terror attacks also included in sub-segments such as how to make TATP bomb and lessons to be learned from Paris terror execution and many other blogs where he shared about Hijrah and misleading religious practices.

Indonesian Police Spokesperson Anton Charliyan reported on Sunday 17 January 2016 that Banhrun's area of expertise is information technology and that he "communicated with his fellow assailants using his IT skills who happen to be knowledgably equipped with ability akin to his."

 Government continues to prevent similar kind of websites that golrify misleading religious teachings from resurfacing ever now and then.

Chief of Jakarta police Tito Karnavian previously informed that Bahrun is a newbie in the terrorist network ISIS as reports of his participation into the group was apparent not until he was set free out of prison in 2012.

“He wanted to create a khatibah (representative) of the terrorist network in the archipelago state. Therefore orchestrating terror attacks in Indonesia was necessitated should he desire leadership status. He wanted to be given the credits by the larger network of his capability,” Tito explained on January 14 2016.

Tito further explained that day that a rampantly spreading influence of ISIS becomes apparent in several South East Asian regions such as Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand. The representative in South Philippines has reportedly declared its status of being the official branch of ISIS terrorist network within that region.

According to him, there has been a competition for ISIS leadership role within South East Asian region. The network in Philippines has supposedly paid him with the recognition he desired and so his recent act was triggered mostly by the urgency to show off his capability to the currently imprisoned terrorist in Nusakambangan, Cilacap Aman Abdurrahman, the man who was sentenced to seven years imprisonment in 2004 for crafting explosives that were suppose to be used to terrorize the country.

“He seeks a leader status of ISIS in South East Asian region, and so it has become a competition with his predecessor and others in this area of illegal expertise. ISIS counterpart in the Philippines has declared his status and so orchestrating the attacks in Jakarta was deemed important for him to serve as a justification to such recognition given,” Shared Tito.

Previous Membership

Terrorist analyst Al Chaidar spoke to Liputan6.com on January 15 2016 about how Bahrun was previously enlisted in the Jamaah Islamiah network, the group which was found guilty for bombings in Bali and other parts in the region. He informed that Bahrun changed his membership to ISIS group after police successfully defeated his previous network and captured many of its ringleaders along the way.

He further informed that Bahrum was actively persuading former Jamaah Islamiah members and other radicalized individuals to go to Syria and join ISIS. The incident in Jakarta was his first actual contribution as a terrorist for the group.

“He used to be a militant for ammunition. Bound for Syria, and orchestrated his first terror back home,” Al Chaidar said.

In the point of view of Al Chaidar, Bahrun supposedly instructed Abu Musa and the rest of the radicalized individuals to execute his mission and coordinated such attack all the way from Syria.

“Such terror act also serves as a message to the police. For them to consider the consequences of detaining the members of terrorist network within the country,” he stated.

Similar to remarks conveyed by Jakarta Police Chief Tito Karnavian, Chaidar also believes that mayhem created was to show other ISIS-related network that Bahrun has what it takes to be called the leader of group in the South East Asian region.

“He sought to show other networks of ISIS that he is the one leading in the competition and so his power ought to be shown at a global scale if he wants a regional-scale acknowledgment,” he posited.

Family members of Bahrun Naim claimed that they have not heard from the man for a relatively long period of time. Brother of Bahrum, Dahlan Zaim told officials that last communication the suspect made was with their parents in Solo through social media.

“We haven’t talked in a long time. I forgot when was the last time we spoke to him. What I remember for sure is that he contacted my parents through social media,” said Dahlan on January 16 2016.

Dahlan expressed his family’s request to not be linked to what his brother allegedly did recently as it is the responsibility of the perpetrator and that his family would not have given such support.

“Subjectively speaking, he is my brother and I knew him back then as a good man. Accusations against him cannot yet be proven unless the legal system through its department can gather enough evidence to suggest that. So, I will allow for the nation’s legal system to prove that,” he enunciated.

“To be honest, we know nothing of his action and what he did really give us a huge impact with my parents unfortunately forced to shut down their processed frozen food business and my image turning especially negative as his brother in school and university he attended before,” continued Dahlan.

 On January 14 2016, a group of terrorists conducted a series of terror act in Sarinah, Thamrin of Indonesia's capital Jakarta. Suicide bombings and exchange of fires between assailants and law enforcers took place in the afternoon which led to the death of three innocent civilians and injuring dozen others. All four terrorists also died from the suicide bombing and shootout with local police force.