INDONESIA faces the dilemma of repatriating its citizens who went to fight alongside the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS or IS). According to the United States Central Intelligence Agency and Indonesian government estimates, there were 689 Indonesians who joined the IS movement and are now believed to have scattered in Syria, Iraq and Turkey.

Mohammad Mahfud MD, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for politics, law and security, said after a cabinet meeting on February 11, “The government and the state has to ensure that the 267 million people in Indonesia are safe from the threat of terrorism…If these foreign terrorist fighters come back they can become a new virus that makes those 267 million people feel unsafe.” Mahfud has also called these fighters a ‘’terrorist virus.”