Indonesia Closes the Door to Returning Jihadists

Indonesian authorities will revoke passports of its citizens that are going to join Islamic State (IS) or who already fighting for IS.

MOSCOW, January 15 (Sputnik) — Indonesia is planning to revoke passports of its citizens who have joined the Islamic State (IS) militant group in an attempt to prevent them from carrying out attacks when they return home, the Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Political, Security and Legal Affairs told The Straits Times.

"We will revoke the passports of those who plan to go abroad to join ISIS and those who are already abroad with ISIS. They cannot be allowed to come home," Tedjo Edhy Purdijatno said following his meeting with the country's Law Minister and national police chief.

According to local media, more than 350 Indonesians have joined the IS in the last two years. About a third of those traveled from Indonesia to fight alongside the IS in Syria. The remainder were already living in the Middle East when they joined the IS militants.

Islamic State is a Sunni jihadist group that has seized large territories in Iraq and Syria, proclaiming a caliphate on those areas. Partially due to its sophisticated use of online media thousands of foreigners have left their countries to join the IS. The largest percentage of new IS fighters originating in Southeast Asia are from Indonesia and Malaysia, the two most-populated Muslim-majority countries of the region.

In the last weeks Indonesian police have conducted several special operations against local IS recruiters.