Why are Indonesian women being targeted for recruitment by Isis-linked extremist groups?

Two terror attacks this month have shone a spotlight on the rise of female militants in Indonesia, with some being radicalised online

Experts say JAD and the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah (JI) target migrant workers and housewives, with women ‘less scrutinised’ as deemed ‘less of a threat’

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Members of a police bomb squad inspect the wreckage of a motorbike used to carry out a suicide bomb attack in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Photo: AP

Amy Chewin Kuala Lumpur

Published: 9:00am, 16 Apr 2021Updated: 2:25am, 2 May 2023

In January, a 21-year-old Indonesian woman quietly flew into Semarang, the capital of Central Java province, where she was met by several people from non-governmental organisations and driven to her home some 80km away in the regency of Temanggung.

Dita Siska Millenia was no ordinary passenger.

She had just been freed from jail after serving more than two years for aiding an act of terrorism during a May 2018 riot at a high-security prison in the West Java headquarters of the elite police Mobile Brigade Corp (Brimob) unit. At the time, five young officers from the police counterterrorism squad Detachment 88 were killed by terror convicts who were mostly from the Islamic State (Isis)-linked Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) group, while one convict was also shot dead.

Dita was arrested along with another woman, Siska Nur Azizah. Prosecutors said they had gone to the prison to help their “brothers” who were involved in the riot, and that the women planned to attack police officers by stabbing them with steel scissors. According to the prosecution, Dita had pledged allegiance to late Isis leader Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi in 2016.

Eka Setiawan, a researcher at the Institute for International Peace Building, was among those who helped send Dita back home. He told This Week in Asia she had been radicalised online and had participated in pro-Isis Telegram groups. In a 2018 interview with local media, Dita admitted to watching videos of beheadings “until she was bored”.