By: Rama Surya) *
The State Intelligence Agency (BIN), the Indonesian National Armed Forces, the National Police, and all state agencies have optimally performed their functions to secure the Christmas and New Year 2020 celebrations. However, security agencies and the public need to continue to increase awareness of the threat of terrorism because terror also has the potential to occur at the beginning of the year .
In early 2016, Indonesia was shocked by the bombing incident in the Thamrin area. a series of explosions rocked the Sarinah crossing, Central Jakarta at the time. The gunfire between the police and the terrorists created a tense atmosphere in the area around Sarinah.
Bom Thamrin is one example that omits the assessment that terror groups do not only carry out their actions at the end of the year. The real purpose of terror groups is to create fear in the community
With the creation of this fear, terror groups are actually satisfied because they can show consistency and existence that they still exist and exist in Indonesia, to show that to their leader (ISIS) Abu Ibrahim Al Hashimi who became the emir of their khilafah in Syria.
In addition, there is a tendency for the pattern of why identical terror groups always actively carry out their actions at the end of the year. This is because of the many celebrations and has also entered the holiday period. But terrorist acts also did not rule out the possibility of happening at the beginning of the year such as the Sarinah bombing.
Holiday times such as the end of the year and the beginning of the year are one of the times chosen by terror groups to carry out their actions. For this reason, as a society we also need to increase our awareness so that events like the Sarinah Bomb do not recur.
According to the National Police Chief General Idham Azis, in 2019 the number of acts of terrorism in Indonesia has begun to decrease a lot compared to 2018. Noted terrorist acts in 2019 only amounted to 8 events.
But this does not rule out the number will increase next year, starting at the beginning of 2020.
Intelligence observer Ridlwan Habib suggested that all parties not only be aware of terror that might occur at the end of the year, because terror also has the potential to occur in early 2020.
The advice given by Ridlwan reflected on the Thamrin bombing incident in January 2016 where at that time his vigilance was only focused on a few days on 25, 31 December and 1 January, while the pattern used by terrorists continued to change.
For the end of 2019 until January 2020, according to Ridlwan, there is quite a potential for terror attacks, but the model has slightly changed compared to events in previous years.
“They show consistency and existence that they still exist and exist in Indonesia, to show that to their leader (ISIS) Abu Ibrahim Al Hashimi who became their emir of the Khilafah in Syria,” he said.
Meanwhile, the military observer of the University of Padjadjaran, Muradi, also appealed to all citizens, both civil and government to be aware of acts of terrorism in the span of 15 December 2019 to 15 January 2020.
He also appealed that acts of terrorism at this time were not only focused on the Jakarta area, but there were areas that could be targeted. Because at this time the terrorism network which is predicted to carry out its actions has also changed the pattern of targets.
With the development of the target pattern of these acts of terrorism, Indonesian people must also increase their sense of vigilance in order to minimize the number of fatalities in acts of terrorism. In addition, the community has an important role in spreading information about the reporting of acts of terrorism. It is better if the community does not take part in neutralizing information relating to acts of terrorism that occur.
This is to prevent the achievement of the objectives of the terror group who want to spread anxiety in the community. However, the community should also build a good opinion on the performance of security forces who have carried out security as a form of community appreciation.
) * The author is a social political observer
