A video of the announcement was uploaded on the YouTube account of hardline Islamic website Arrahmah on Jul 3.
In the video, the 16 JI officials are seen standing on a stage. They include Abu Rusdan, a militant cleric and former JI leader arrested in Bekasi in September 2021, and Para Wijayanto, who was arrested in 2019 for recruiting militants and raising funds for Syria. Both are still in detention.
The dissolution was agreed by the assembly of seniors and leaders of Islamic boarding schools affiliated with JI, said Abu Rusdan.
They agreed to return to the fold of the Republic of Indonesia and will make changes to the curriculum of the JI-affiliated schools so that there are no more materials that teach extremism.
The group was formed in 1993 by Abdullah Sungkar and Abu Bakar Bashir with the mission of building an Islamic state in Southeast Asia.
Abdullah died in 1999 while Abu Bakar was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2011 on charges of funding militant training in Aceh. The 83-year-old was released in 2021 on humanitarian grounds.
Allegedly affiliated with Al Qaeda, the group was designated a banned organisation by the Jakarta District Court in 2008 after several terror attacks by individuals acting on behalf of the group.
JI saw several splits that resulted in organisations founded by people who were dissatisfied with the decisions of its top brass. Abu Bakar Bashir himself left JI and formed the Indonesian Mujahidin Council (MMI) in 2000 before stepping down in 2008 after an internal dispute.
The United States in 2017 designated MMI as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) for its alleged links to the Al Qaeda and Al Nusra Front movements. The US views this group as posing a significant risk of committing acts of terrorism, although the MMI has denied links to terror groups.
