Bagus Maskuron was convicted, but apparently free and well-heeled. The Islamic State attracts Muslims’ loyalty from as far away as Indonesia because of the appeal of the concept of the caliphate. But mainstream Western analysts scratch their heads and wonder why the Islamic State has this appeal, because they are bound as a matter of dogma to pretend that it has nothing to do with Islam.
“Police Source: Syria-Bound Indonesians Financed by Terror Convict,” by Farouk Arnaz, Jakarta Globe, December 21, 2014 (thanks to Lookmann):
The alleged attempt by a group of 12 Indonesian nationals to join the Islamic State movement in Syria was financed by a convicted terrorist, a police source told the Jakarta Globe on Sunday.
“We’ve figured out that Bagus Maskuron, a former convict of the paramilitary training case in Aceh, was behind this,” said an investigator from the National Police’s anti-terror squad, Densus 88. “He told the nine people [out of a group of 12] to go to Syria and funded the trip. Bagus is in Syria. One of the women and one of the kids detained were Bagus’s wife and kid.”
Police raided a terrorist training camp in Aceh in March 2010.
The 12 Indonesians were detained after trying to leave for Syria from Malaysia. Nine of them, four women and five children, were released on Friday. Three men would still be questioned until Monday, police said.
It is not illegal for Indonesians to travel to Syria, and the only law that can be used in such cases, police say, is the one dealing with citizenship. Indonesians can lose their citizenship if they voluntarily take an oath or pledge allegiance to a foreign country or a part of it.
One of the men detained was M. Sibgotuloh, a former convict of a deadly CIMB bank robbery in Medan, North Sumatra, in 2010….