Problem:
The 2018 attacks on three churches in Surabaya, Indonesia, confirmed the fact that ISIS followers in Indonesia are hardly united. Many different local groups swore allegiance to the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Bagdadi after June 2014, when he declared the caliphate in Mosul, Iraq. Although the largest of these groups is a loose network known as Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (J.A.D.), not all the violence in the 2018 attacks was committed by J.A.D. members and not all the J.A.D. action was coordinated. Indeed, this lack of an overarching organisational structure makes ISIS ideology harder to eradicate because some groups may cling to it even after others move on.
- New York Times, 22 May 2018
Judge the impact of pro-ISIS groups on regional terrorism in Southeast Asia.