Indonesia’s efforts are keeping the terror threat under control, but can it continue to stay ahead?

JAKARTA – Scattered across Indonesia’s sprawling archipelago, suspected militants affiliated to Daulah Islamiah were quietly seeking one another out. Not just through clandestine meetings, but also from behind computer screens.

They collaborated online to recruit followers, spread extremist teachings and rebuilt networks across provincial lines. Some had also allegedly undergone weapons training, suggesting their activities could eventually have progressed to attacks.

They did not get that far. Densus 88, Indonesia’s counterterrorism squad, said on Oct 4 it had arrested 11 suspects across six provinces over the previous two days – demonstrating a proactive approach which has kept Indonesia free from terrorist attacks for nearly four years.

While the militants’ target profiles are not clear, IS affiliates in Indonesia had attacked government installations and places of worship in the past.

The arrests reflect how years of disruption through counter-terrorism efforts have weakened Indonesia’s militant networks and delivered significant security gains, analysts said.

But they said the latest sweep also shows how extremists are adapting, using digital spaces to recruit, reconnect and rebuild after prominent organised terrorist groups in the country became demobilised.

Notably, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the Al-Qaeda-linked group behind the 2002 Bali bombings, disbanded in 2024 after years of pressure. High-profile JI members were not arrested in the recent cycles of terrorist arrests, suggesting the group might be living up to its promise of moving away from violence, although the authorities remain cautious. Some of its leaders continue to serve long jail sentences.

The authorities have also severely weakened the pro-Islamic State, Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), whose members carried out a series of suicide bombings targeting churches and police in Surabaya in May 2018. The attacks, some involving entire families and their children, killed 15 people, excluding 13 attackers.

The last terrorist attack in Indonesia was a suicide bombing at a police station in Bandung in December 2022 by a JAD operative that killed one officer and injured 10 others.

The decline in terrorist violence in Indonesia is part of a broader global trend. The 2026 Global Terrorism Index, produced by the Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace, found that deaths from terrorism worldwide fell 28% in 2025 to 5,582, while the number of attacks dropped 22% to 2,944 – the lowest levels recorded since 2007.

The longer-term decline follows a peak in terrorism deaths in 2015, with the index pointing to major counter-terrorism successes in Iraq, Syria and the wider Middle East as contributing factors. These included the military defeat of the Islamic State’s territorial caliphate, which once controlled large areas of Iraq and Syria.

The relative calm in Indonesia in the last few years, not an easy feat given the vastness of the country and its population, along with a history of militant activities in parts of the country and in neighbouring Philippines, has required repeated interventions. These include close monitoring of suspects and networks, timely arrests of members belonging to large networks, awareness campaigns and deradicalisation drives.

The authorities say they have thwarted about 28 terrorist plots in the last four years.

Alif Satria, a research fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), said the success of Indonesia’s counter-terror efforts are not only owed to the timely apprehension of would-be attackers, but also through the systematic targeting of the larger enabling eco-system that comprises propagandists, trainers and recruiters.

“By disrupting these supporting networks alongside operational members, the authorities can significantly constrain an organisation’s ability to sustain its activities,” he said.

A 2018 revision of the country’s terrorism law gave the authorities greater scope to act during the preparation and planning stages, allowing Densus 88 to disrupt plots and the networks supporting them before violence occurs.

Muh Taufiqurrohman, a senior researcher at the Jakarta-based Centre for Radicalism and Deradicalisation Studies, said Densus 88 has become more methodical in building cases, with investigators holding case conferences and requiring at least two pieces of evidence against a suspect before an arrest.

Soft approaches but not going soft

Analysts say the gains have come from more than arrests alone. The authorities have increasingly calibrated their response according to the level of threat.

Taufiqurrohman pointed to one recent set of cases involving 24 teenagers exposed to violent extremist communities. Only one was detained, while the others underwent assessments and counselling, with their families brought into the intervention, suggesting openness to case-specific approaches where warranted.

Just days before the latest arrests, Densus 88 held an “ideological transformation” programme in Banten aimed at reinforcing former JI members’ move away from extremism and helping them reintegrate into society.

Former senior JI figures Para Wijayanto and Zarkasih were among the speakers, while participants watched a film reflecting on the first year since JI’s dissolution and took part in discussions on moderate Islam, national values and the rejection of violent ideology.

Densus 88 said it had conducted 19 such programmes across Indonesia, working with local governments, religious leaders and other groups to help former JI members reintegrate into their communities.

Adlini Ilma Ghaisany Sjah, an associate research fellow with RSIS’ ICPVTR, said Indonesia’s record reflected a combination of “hard” and “soft” approaches.

“The soft approach shows the government engaging in dialogue with incarcerated terrorists, supporting civil society organisations and community- based preventing and countering violent extremism (PCVE) programmes, and assisting rehabilitation and reintegration.

“Indonesia has used soft approach policies since the mid-2000s, but the measures became more integrated after the establishment of the BNPT (National Counter-Terrorism Agency) in 2010 and the introduction of the National Action Plan on PCVE in 2021,” she added.

Alif observed that years of arrests had steadily eroded the organisational capacity of Indonesia’s major militant groups, disrupting their leadership as well as the recruitment, propaganda and training networks that sustained them.

But while the fragmentation of Indonesia’s militant landscape has made large, coordinated attacks harder to organise, it has also created smaller networks that can be harder to detect because they leave fewer organisational and communication trails.

The latest arrests point to another shift: attempts to bring some of those fragments back together.

“What these latest IS-linked arrests show is that there are still efforts at consolidating and centralising the network,” Adlini said.

Online dangers persist

A bigger long-term concern is how militant networks are finding new ways to reach young people, as the pathways into extremism increasingly extend beyond conventional ideological recruitment.

In September, the BNPT said 620 children aged 11 to 18 across 34 provinces had been exposed to violent and radical narratives online between January and August.

Densus 88 has raised concerns about other online pathways through which young people can be exposed to violence. In January, the unit said it had identified 70 children aged 11 to 18 across 19 provinces who were members of so-called True Crime Communities (TCC), an online subculture centred on real-life violent crimes and their perpetrators.

Adlini said these communities differ from Islamist militant groups such as JAD, which have clearer ideological narratives and identifiable leaders. TCCs, on the other hand, are leaderless, drawing young people through violent imagery, notoriety or a sense of belonging rather than a coherent ideology.

Experts worry that extremist recruiters could tap into these primed young people already immersed in violent online spaces, and that the progression from fascination with violence to extremist intent can be rapid.

Taufiqurrohman cited one pro-Islamic State youth who went from encountering a gore video on TikTok to planning attacks on Parliament and a police station within about three months.

As the youth became more deeply immersed in extremist content, he was drawn into WhatsApp groups that together had around 1,660 members, some administered using foreign phone numbers.

AI could further shorten their pathway to violence. Taufiqurrohman said his research found pro-Islamic State youths in Indonesia using AI tools like ChatGPT alongside other more widely accessible online and communication tools to reinforce their beliefs.

The role of AI compounding Indonesia’s terrorism threat is already on the authorities’ radar. In May, then-national police chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo warned that extremists could use artificial intelligence for “automated radicalisation” – using the technology to identify vulnerable audiences, tailor extremist content to individuals and potentially engage prospective recruits through automated chatbots – alongside the gamification of violence on online platforms.

For now, AI remains one tool among many, with its most immediate impact likely to be on propaganda and recruitment, experts said. But they cautioned this could change as the technology becomes more capable, particularly if it helps extremists overcome gaps in technical knowledge.

The growing reliance on digital tools also has a downside for militants, at least for now: it leaves investigators with trails that can help expose the networks they are trying to build.

“These networks are cheap to rebuild and hard to finish off, but their digital trail is what lets investigators map them,” Taufiqurrohman said.