The Rationality of Terror Movement’s Evolution

Kompas/Riza Fathoni

Head of Public Relations Division of the National Police Headquarters Insp. Gen. Setyo Wasisto releases photographs of evidence found around the blast site in the Kampung Melayu terminal, East Jakarta, Thursday (25/5).

The bomb attack in Kampung Melayu, Jakarta, on Wednesday (24/5/2017) night, which is alleged to have been a suicide bombing, resulted in the death of three police officers. The police suspect a link between the attack’s two perpetrators and the Jamaah Ansharut Daulah group that was behind the pressure cooker bomb attack in Cicendo, Bandung, West Java, in late February. If this is the case, the Kampung Melayu attack can be seen as just the most recent stage in the rational evolution of a terror movement.

The Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), which was included in the US Department of State’s Foreign Terrorist Organization in January 2017, was also behind the Thamrin bomb attack in Jakarta in January 2016 and the Oikumene Church in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, in November 2016.