IPAC Report: Indonesia's Villa Mutiara Network - Challenges Posed by One Extremist Family
Photo of Idul Fitri 2015 at Rizaldy’s house Villa Mutiara. Source: IPAC document
Indonesia’s Villa Mutiara Network: Challenges Posed By One Extremist Family, the latest report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), explores how seven siblings and their multiple spouses and children became a network of some 80 individuals, inspired by ISIS after the declaration of a caliphate in June 2014. The eldest sibling, a man named Rizaldy, became the leader. He was killed, together with a son-in-law, in a police operation in January 2021. Most of the rest of the network were arrested, tried and convicted by late 2022. The question is what will happen after their release.
“Discouraging ISIS supporters from returning to their old networks is difficult under the best of circumstances, but it’s even harder when the network is your own family,” says Syafiq Hasyim, research director of IPAC.
When extremism and family ties become intertwined, charting the path forward for an effective anti-terrorism policy and de-radicalization program becomes much more difficult. For arrested members, how should the government ensure they won’t reconnect with their previous networks, when those networks are comprised of their family members themselves?
The latest report from the NYSEAN partner Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict dives into these questions, comparing the different pressures and dangers faced by elder and youth members as they navigate in and out of these societies.
