Marriage Alliances Involved in Terrorist Activities

It was reported that Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the Southeast Asian terrorist group known to have ties with Al-Qaeda, forms marriage alliances with their core members marrying each other.

According to an article by a Malaysian daily newspaper, the Star, on September 8, JI leaders, core members, and operators have married each other and formed family ties, and the number of cases add up to more than 100.

Southeast Asian intelligence institutions have known that JI members have been forming alliances through marriages, but they said the actual scope of the family ties is much broader than they have thought.

According to the Star, a related official in the Anti-terrorists Unit (ATU) in the Indonesian government said that the marriage alliance cases are only “the tip of an iceberg” and that the actual numbers are much higher.

The ATU official said that they found this out after investigating in-depth about what the family members, especially their spouses, of JI terrorists do.

The official explained that marriages between JI members are intended to tie Malaysian and Indonesian members as families. The official also explained that it is common that married couples work together in teams as JI members.