Southeast Asia: terrorism's next front

[RuffThugg]

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Militants sympathetic to al-Qaeda operatives aim to carve out an Islamic state from Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines

Peter Goodspeed
National Post


Saturday, July 20, 2002

The goal is stunning for the mere sweep of its ambition -- to create a single Islamic state that cuts across the entire arc of Southeast Asia by carving off huge portions of Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia.

And the tool to achieve it is terror -- the same threat of mass murder that destroyed New York's World Trade Center.

In the wake of Sept. 11 and the rout of the Taliban in Afghanis-tan, Asia has become the focus of a new and urgent attempt to root out fundamentalists who appear determined to resort to bloodshed to achieve their goals.

In recent weeks, police and intelligence agents in Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia have been rounding up dozens of terrorist suspects who they say are implicated in a string of bombings and potentially horrific terror plots that could have killed thousands.

A long list of Asian Islamic militant organizations -- from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines to the Laskar Jihad and Free Aceh Movement in Indonesia and Malaysia's Kumpulan Mujahideen Malaysia (KMM) -- are said either to be infiltrated by or sympathetic to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network.

Islamic madrassas, or religious schools, in Indonesia and Malaysia have been used to recruit and train potential terrorists and Islamic fundamentalist and separatist movements scattered across the chaotic map of Southeast Asia. Many are said to have been nurtured, funded and armed by al-Qaeda operatives.

Police in the region insist there is an urgency to unravelling the intricate entanglements linking violent fundamentalist and separatist groups. They say terrorists linked to al-Qaeda in Malaysia are already in possession of four tons of ammonium nitrate -- the same fertilizer that was packed into a car bomb that destroyed the U.S. Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

A former Malaysian army captain, with links to al-Qaeda, is in prison in Kuala Lumpur and has admitted to purchasing massive amounts of the fertilizer.

The same man also allowed two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, who flew a passenger jet into the Pentagon building in Washington, to stay in his Kuala Lumpur apartment two years ago, just as al-Qaeda began to plot its Sept. 11 attacks.

Not long after Malaysian police began to search for the missing fertilizer, security officials in neighbouring Singapore arrested 13 members of the militant Jemaah Islamiah (Islamic Group) organization, claiming they had foiled an attack in which seven fertilizer-packed car bombs were going to be targeted at the U.S. embassy and several American-owned businesses.

Singapore police suspect Jemaah Islamiah members may also have purchased another nine tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer from contacts in the Philippines.

By way of comparison, the Oklahoma City bombing was carried out with only one ton of ammonium nitrate.

This week in the Philippines, an al-Qaeda trained Indonesian explosives expert was arrested on suspicion of preparing bombs for attacks on U.S. targets in Singapore.

At the same time, Agus Dwikarna, described by Philippines police as a member of Jemaah Islamiah, was sentenced to 10 years in jail when a Philippines' court found him guilty of possessing C-4 plastic explosives.

That sentencing triggered street demonstrations in Indonesia yesterday, when 100 supporters of Jemaah Islamiah rallied outside the Philippine embassy in Jakarta to demand Dwikarna's release, saying his conviction was part of an international conspiracy to undermine Islam.

Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim state, with all its simmering ethnic conflicts, religious tensions, poverty and radicalism, has become the focal point of Jemaah Islamiah activities in the region. Intelligence and security officials across Southeast Asia point to a white-bearded, Indonesian cleric, Abu Bakar Bashir, as the group's spiritual leader.

Abu Bakar, 63, an Islamic teacher who worked in Malaysia in the 1980s and 1990s, after he fled a prison term in Indonesia for anti-government activities, now heads the Indonesian Mujahedeen Council, a group that is lobbying for the adoption of strict Islamic Sharia law in Indonesia.

Although he was recently detained for questioning and released, Abu Bakar has never been charged directly with fomenting terrorism or openly calling for the creation of "Daulah Islamiah," an Islamic state that would include Indonesia, Malaysia, the southern Philippines and Brunei.

Singapore security officials, however, have publicly identified him as the head of Jemaah Islamiah, while Malaysia claims he is the "directing figure" behind the KMM, which has been blamed for a series of bombings.

Abu Bakar has repeatedly denied any involvement with Jemaah Islamiah or terrorism, saying the allegations are part of a "global conspiracy by Americans and Jews" who want to destroy Islam.

While he denies any links to al-Qaeda, he "praises the struggle of Osama bin Laden ... in fighting the arrogance of the terrorist United States" and admits to being an active recruiter and fund-raiser for Muslim militias that have been battling Christians in Indonesia's Maluku Islands, where more than 5,000 people have died in the past four years.

So far, Indonesia has been reluctant to crack down on Abu Bakar and other Muslim militants, fearing a sectarian backlash would destabilize the fragile coalition government of President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

But that reluctance is beginning to worry the United States, which is anxious to turn Southeast Asia into its second front in the war on terrorism. Recently, Paul Wolfowitz, the U.S. deputy defence secretary, toured the region and told reporters he is concerned about the possible emergence of an Islamic terrorist threat there.

"You see the potential for Muslim extremists and Muslim terrorists to link with those Muslim groups in Indonesia and find a little corner for themselves in a country that's otherwise quite unfriendly to terrorism," he said.

© Copyright 2002 National Post
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Bron:National Post

Word het(de hoge heren inhet) Westen nou eens wakker, en gaat men hier ook een prioriteit van maken i.p.v. alleen mensen in eigen land aan te pakken(en Afghanistan plat te bombarderen)?

Voorkomen is beter dan genezen toch? En dat is een van de nieuwe kiemen.

Na bijna 4 jaar is het hier nog steeds zowat niet doorgedrongen dat er extremistische moslims bezig zijn in Azie.

[McCaine]

RuffThugg schreef:
Word het(de hoge heren inhet) Westen nou eens wakker, en gaat men hier ook een prioriteit van maken i.p.v. alleen mensen in eigen land aan te pakken(en Afghanistan plat te bombarderen)?

Voorkomen is beter dan genezen toch? En dat is een van de nieuwe kiemen.

Na bijna 4 jaar is het hier nog steeds zowat niet doorgedrongen dat er extremistische moslims bezig zijn in Azie.

Ben jij er wel van op de hoogte dat de Amerikanen samen met de Filippino's bezig zijn Abu Sayyaf op te ruimen? Er zijn al verscheidene operaties uitgevoerd door het amerikaanse leger in de regio. Ook is de toestand in de eeuwige Molukken de internationale gemeenschap beslist niet ontgaan.

[tacidvs]

Wat is dit? De telegraaf ofzo? Allemaal loze fragmentjes die mbv 'al-qaeda' (hoe je dat ook schrijft) aaneengeplakt zijn. Dit gaat echt helemaal nergens over, allemaal loos gezeur. Neem bijvoorbeeld dat bommenmaken van kunstmest: Waarom zouden ze in Azië andere kunstmest hebben dan in Amerika? Het getuigd alleen maar van gezond verstand bij de zogenaamde 'moslim terroristen', dat ze niet tweemaal het wiel uit willen vinden.

Slotje, dvs...

[alwaysgood]

neee he niet nog meer moslim fundamentalisten.