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Indonesia must ban JI, says expert
 Gunaratna says JI is "highly fractured" but its cells are still active and capable. RELATEDRELATED STORIESSPECIAL REPORTYOUR E-MAIL ALERTS(CNN) -- A regional terrorism expert has called on Indonesia to outlaw Jemaah Islamiyah, the militant Islamic organization widely believed to be behind the weekend terror attacks in Bali. Rohan Gunaratna, head of terrorism research at Singapore's Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, told CNN on Monday that Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) is the only group with "the intention and the capability" to mount suicide attacks against Western targets in Indonesia. No group has claimed responsibility for the October 1 attacks on Bali tourism resorts that killed 19 people and wounded more than 130 others, but Gunaratna and other terrorism observers say the coordinated suicide blasts had all the hallmarks of a JI operation. While JI is believed to be the Southeast Asian arm of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network, it has not been declared an illegal organization in Indonesia. Gunaratna, author of "Inside al-Qaeda: Global Network of Terror," said Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono must designate JI as a terrorist organization and make it illegal. He said that without proscribing JI, the Indonesian government would be unable to dismantle or destroy it. Gunaratna said JI could still recruit and do propaganda work in Indonesia, where it was not against the law to be a member of the organization. Asked about possible JI involvement in the latest Bali attacks, Indonesia's Foreign Ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa told CNN on Monday that it was important to let police do their investigative work. "We don't wish to cloud the investigative process by making assumptions," he said. JI was blamed for the October 2002 Bali attacks, which killed 202 people, most of them Indonesians and Australians. Four key militants involved in that 2002 attack have been sentenced -- three to death -- while dozens of others have also been convicted. JI is also thought to be behind two other deadly attacks: the suicide truck bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta in September 2004 that left 10 people dead; and a suicide bomb attack on the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in August 2003 in which 12 people died. Clive Williams, Director of the Strategic and Defense Studies Center at the Australian National University, told The Associated Press on Sunday that despite the arrests of many JI-linked militants, the group still had the capability to recruit new members and apparently to stage attacks. Australia and the United States consider jailed Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir to be the spiritual head of JI. In March this year, Ba'asyir was sentenced to 30 months in jail for involvement in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, but was cleared of all other terror-related charges, including those related to the Marriott Hotel bombing. JI's top operatives in the region are fugitive Malaysians Azahari bin Husin and Noordin Mohamed Top, both of whom are believed to be hiding in Indonesia. Gunaratna said on Monday he believed that with the latest attacks, JI wanted to show it was still active, still had a presence in Indonesia and was still "carrying out its mandate." Gunaratna estimated that less than 1 percent of Indonesia's 230 million people supported JI and its related groups, but that was enough to sustain it. He told CNN that JI was "regenerating." While it was now highly fractured, its cells were still capable of acting. As part of a sound anti-terrorism plan, Gunaratna said Indonesia needed to outlaw JI, step up its anti-terror training, and improve its collection and propagation of high-grade intelligence. Yudhoyono has condemned the Bali blasts as a terrorist attack. "These were clearly acts of terrorism because the victims were indiscriminately chosen and the targets were public areas. As president and on behalf of the Republic of Indonesia, I strongly condemn these inhuman acts," he said in a weekend television address. Australian Prime Minister John Howard told a press conference in Sydney on Sunday that Australia had long believed JI should be banned in Indonesia. But he said that this was a matter that had to be decided by the Indonesian government. 
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