TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The deputy chairman of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI)’s Extremism and Terrorism Mitigation Agency (BPET), Insp. Gen. (ret) Hamli, said some 45 percent of terrorists in the country were motivated by extreme religious ideologies.

“Based on our research, from over 100 samples of terrorists that we took on 2012 that are still relevant to date, they were not driven by a single motive, but the dominant factor is the religious factor, which accounted for 45.5 percent,” he said in an online event titled “Pancasila Ideology Development for the National Flag Hoisting Team Retirees Before Year 2021” on Monday, October 25, 2021.

He added besides the religious motives, there were also other motives driving the terrorists, viz. communal solidarity (20 percent), mass mentality (12.7 percent), revenge (10.9 percent), situational motive (9.1 percent) and separatism (1.8 percent).

He explained the influence of religious ideology stemmed from certain groups that declared themselves as religious but were against nationalism. Thus, he called on the event’s participants to remain vigilant against the existence of some particular groups that embraced extreme ideologies and resorted to violence in their actions.

“If there are some people who say that nationalism is wrong, nationalism is standing against a religion, these people can be categorized as radicals,” he said.

Read: Religion and Terrorism: Religiousity Exploitation?

ANTARA