ISIS Suicide Bomber’s Death Sparks His Brother’s Journey to Redemption Through a Coffee Shop

Muhammad In’am Amin runs Kopi Gandroeng. a coffee shop in Indonesia’s historic city of Yogyakarta surrounded by student hostels and universities.

Other than being a place for the youth to chill, eat and drink, it also serves another purpose.

To dissuade one more youth from turning into a terrorist.

ISIS Suicide Bomber’s Death Sparks His Brother’s Journey to Redemption Through a Coffee Shop

Mr In’am’s brother, Wildan Mukhollad, was a terrorist.

Initially, his brother was a bright young boy who wants to become a religious cleric.

He left home in 2011 for Egypt on a scholarship to study the Arabic language at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo.

The first year went well, but things started changing after.

Wildan started expressing his interest in joining Jihad (the Struggle) and carried a rifle around with him wherever he goes.

The family tried hard to convince him to come home but failed.

They lost contact with him after.

Death & Ostracised

In February 2014, the family received news of Wildan’s death.

He had died while carrying out a car suicide attack at the young tender age of 19.

The family was devastated by the news of his death, but that wasn’t all they had to endure.

While they were initially on good terms with the rest of the village, they found themselves known as “the family of the terrorist”.

The family was vilified and monitored by the authorities.

Mr In’am, himself, was labelled a terrorist as well.

Leaving

In 2015, Mr In’am left Lamongan and shifted 320km away to Yogyakarta.

Thinking of what he can do to prevent other people from following his brother’s footsteps, Mr In’am got together with a few friends to start a counter-terrorism organisation, the Yayasan Lingkar Perdamaian (Peace Network Foundation).

They started the coffee shop, Kopi Gandroeng, to reach out to youth and guide them away from extremist beliefs, giving them the chance to form a new social network.

The coffee shop also hires former terrorists, giving them a new community so they won’t fall back into terrorism.

50 Out Of 850 Terrorists Goes Back Into Terrorism After Being Released From Prison.

Since 2019, Indonesia’s counter-terrorism agency arrested about 525 terror suspects and killed six when they resisted arrest.

The province where Yogyakarta is located has the second-highest number of terrorists in Indonesia.

The government has rehabilitation programmes, usually run within prisons, to dissuade terrorists from their paths.

The programmes, however, aren’t as effective as people like them to be.

It was estimated that since 2002, about 50 out of 850 terrorists released from jail falls back into their old ways.

Dr Noor Huda Ismail, the founder of Ruang Obrol, an Indonesia-based initiative aimed at rehabilitating radical Islamists, said that while efforts were made to rehabilitate the terrorists caught, no efforts were made to monitor them after their release.

Even if they did not engage in terrorist activities thereafter, they might still be encouraging others to pick up the struggle.

Informal support, he said, provides a “human touch” and “sustained support” for radicalised youths.

This makes them confident enough to cut off old ties.

Words of Tolerance

Since its inception in 2016, Yayasan Lingkar Perdamaian has managed to dissuade many youths from turning into terrorists.

Even so, Mr In’am struggles to forgive himself for his brother’s death.

“As the eldest in the family, I’m responsible for my siblings. But I didn’t give Wildan any money when he was leaving for Egypt.

“Other families were giving their children everything but I could afford nothing. I was in financial distress and ill at that time. Wildan came to bid me farewell when I was lying ill in be.”

He hopes that the young people today would recognise that while there are “words of war and words of jihad’, there are also “words of tolerance and mercy” in the Quran.

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