Indonesia quashed al-Qaida. Now it faces new Islamic State threat.

The perils posed by the Islamic State have focused attention largely on the extremists' domains in Iraq and Syria, and their rumored networks of sympathizers in the West. But, as a new report published Wednesday shows, the influence of the jihadist organization is growing in Indonesia, home to the world's largest population of Muslims. The Islamic State's strident propaganda and allure to some radicals "could raise the risk of violence and increase the incentive for attacking foreigners," says the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), a Jakarta-based think tank.

The Islamic State is winning followers among Indonesian Muslims already animated by the cause of global jihad, as well as others who want to take on the country's government, which, given the great diversity of the archipelago nation, is a secular institution. In recent months, YouTube videos have surfaced, urging locals to join the jihad in Syria and Iraq. Dozens of Indonesians are suspected of having journeyed to Syria and entered its civil war.

IPAC's report traces support for the Islamic State through a web of extremist Web sites and preachers, including notable members of the Indonesian jihadist community. Some are in prison and continue to translate and circulate Islamic State propaganda from behind bars. Through a radical Internet portal, one jailed extremist issued this version of the Islamic State's call earlier this month for supporters to target Western nationals from countries taking part in the airstrikes against the group's military assets in Syria and Iraq:

If you do not have bombs or bullets, and a kafir (infidel) from America or France or one of their allies comes out, hit him in the head with a rock, carve him up with a knife, hit him with your car, throw him off a high building or poison him!

The report also offers an interesting account of an Indonesian fighter's journey to Syria to join the Islamic State. Here's an excerpt:

[The Islamic State] had two camps: the first trained cadets who were going directly into combat forces; the second was for candidate suicide bombers. Akang [the nickname of the Indonesian activist] chose the first. After two weeks' training, at the end of May 2014, he graduated with some 250 others, and formally became an [Islamic State] soldier with a uniform, weapon, salary and housing for his family.

After graduation, Akang and his family were moved to Haruriyah in Halab where Akang was assigned to an [Islamic State] unit. As a soldier he was entitled to a salary of $50 a month, with another $50 provided to his wife and $25 per child, so that every month, the family received $200. Akang joined a unit led by Abu Muhammad Al-Amriki ("the American"), a former soldier of Al-Nusra [an al-Qaeda-linked militia also fighting in Syria] who defected to ISIS. They were assisted by a sizeable ISIS force (Akang says 3,000) under the leadership of Abu Umar Al-Shishani, former head of another rebel group, Jaish Al-Muhajirin wal Anshar (JMA). Their goal was to take Aleppo.

Indonesia has no law making it a crime for one of its nationals to take part in military activities in a foreign country, which deepens concern that more radicalized Indonesians may want to follow in Akang's footsteps. As the report details, many jihadists in organizations like the Islamic State look to regions like Southeast Asia and South Asia -- where the Muslim population is larger than its equivalent in the Arab world -- as fertile ground for recruits.

But the Indonesian government has taken considerable strides elsewhere to counter the jihadists in its midst. Over the past decade, Jakarta's security agencies have been successful at breaking up al-Qaida-connected cells, arresting terror ringleaders and subduing the influence of their ideologues. Earlier this month, the country's elite Detachment 88, a police counterterrorist force, picked up four Turkish nationals and three Indonesians suspected to be organizing an Islamic State cell in the island of Sulawesi, according to the Agence France-Presse news agency.

Last month, the government banned outright displays of support for the Islamic State, saying it violated the country's state ideology of "unity through diversity." There are reasons Jakarta can be confident it can curb the Islamic State's reach -- not least because the ability of the terrorist organization to mobilize Indonesian recruits directly through online social media is impaired by many Indonesians' lack of fluency in Arabic and English.

Yet, given the country's vastness and its history of extremism, it will have to remain vigilant. "The overall capacity of Indonesian extremists remains low, but their commitment to ISIS could prove deadly," says Sidney Jones, IPAC's director.

- By Ishaan Tharoor