ABSTRACT
One of the Aceh war’s least examined aspects was Jakarta’s strategic-and international-level infiltration and “black” (covert) operations against Acehnese resistance. Such infiltration activities related closely to the formation of “Red and White” paramilitaries in both the Aceh and East Timor cases. Unlike the East Timor case, Indonesian forces faced much less international opposition over Aceh, because GAM enjoyed less foreign sympathy and support than FALINTIL. Nonetheless, such operations in both regions had the same essential goals: division and destabilization of both the resistance and its sources of civilian support. But in the rise of loyalist militias outside of East Timor from the late 1990s, not only in Aceh but Papua and elsewhere, obvious Indonesian jihadist elements were discernible within broader operations partly aimed at local and overseas perceptions.
