Combating Terrorist Financing in ISIS

Turmoil
Refki Saputra, Researcher at Indonesian Legal Roundtable,
Jakarta
Movement of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known as
Islamic State (IS), has spread in indonesia. In fact, some
activities related to ISIS have appeared in public in some
reions, includin in !akarta, Solo, "ima, and Malan.
In !akarta, a roup of people have e#pressed support for ISIS in
public at the $otel Indonesia roundabout some time ao. %hile,
in another places, they have declared baiat, or to pledes of
alleiance, to the ISIS to show their full support for ISIS
movement.
&lthouh until this day, the actual terror from those parties have
yet to appear, the e#istence for ISIS in the country potentially
becomes the new terrorism cell in Indonesia.
&ctually, terrorism is not merely about ideoloies or reliions,
but, as a transnational orani'ed crime, it requires a lot of
money to ain its oals( the one thin we often foret.
&nd )ust like other transnational orani'ed crimes, such as dru
tra*ckin and people smulin, terrorism is hard to evolve or
even to survive, if is not supported by stron and sustainable
fundin mechanism.
& series of terror activities can only be reali'ed if they own the
equipments like the like e#plosives materials, weapons and
transportations.
+here are two way to et those. ,irst, they buy from illeal
markets( and second from the help of the a*liated parties (e..
the aid from countries with particular interest). In terms of -rst
method, the terrorist roup has to ather lare enouh money.
In Indonesia, member of terrorist roups often et money from
donations their closest associates and by conductin some
crimes like bank robberies. "efore committin terror activities, it
is certain that there will be a fundraisin activity, which is alson
the most crucial step in their operations.
It should be emphasi'ed that the presence of ISIS in Indonesia,
was not occurred )ust recently. It has started since a year ao,
when the movement has beun to openly raise funds and recruit
members. In ,ebruari ./01, the Islamic Sharia &ctivist ,orum
(,aksi) has manaed to raise up to Rp. 1. million for ISIS durin
a public lecture (ceramah) at ,athullah mosque, which located at
the Syarif $idayatullah State Islamic 2niversity comple#, in
3iputat, South !akarta. (Sidney !ones, +empo Maa'ine 045.1
&uust, ./01).
+herefore, both international and national reimes nowadays has
been criminali'in such the terrorist6s -nancin activities.
7lobally, any person fundin or helpin to fund the terrorism
activities will be sub)ected to criminal sanctions as a perpetrator
of terrorism -nancin.
&n Indonesian law, in fact, allows authorities to sei'e and
con-scate assets related to terrorism activities. &uthori'ed
institution can block such fund both directly or indirectly related
to terrorism or those suspected to be used for terrorism
activities (&rticle .., 8aw 9o. : of ./0;).
+here is only a sliht di<erence between terrorism -nancin with
money launderin. In money launderin, the money to be
laundered obtained from illeal source or illeal activities. "ut, in
the terrorism -nancin, can be obtained from either leal or
illeal sources.
+he money comin from leitimate sources becomes illeal
because those are used for evil purposes, which is terrorism. So,
authorities should detect raised5funds for terrorist activities from
the outset.
2nfortunately, to date, the authorities have not demonstrated a
concrete step in addressin the threat of ISIS in Indonesia.
If we open some website which related to )ihadist movements55
especially those created and owned by Indonesians55we could
see the invitation for public to donate for the mu)ahideen
includin the ISIS. $owever, untill now, we have not heard
wheater those parties behind the website were asked for
clari-cation.
%e can=t wait for victims to fall to take action. &nd that is not the
reason why the law criminali'in such terrorism -nancin was
created in the -rst place. +he authorities must take a concrete
step to prevent the actual terror>which will cause su<erin>
from happenin.
&nd to further preventin the deployment of ISIS ideoloy which
tolerates the e#istence of cruelty and is anti5pluralism.