Issues of Terrorism in Southeast Asia

It has been understood that the terrorism in Southeast Asia has taken the base of

an Islamic political arena and conflict of Religious confrontation towards the western

influences. Different from its counterpart of terrorism in say, the south Americas where

most act of terrorism was more often than not fueled by the principles of freedom

fighting, idealistic and nationalistic agendas, terrorism in Southeast Asia would ceased to

exist if it wasn’t for such incidents like the 9/11 . Some of the same terrorist movement

may have been present long before the 9/11 event, like the Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia

which was an establishment by a group of clerics who demanded the implementation of

the syariah Laws by the Government was also a guerilla force fighting against the Dutch

and the secularist movement of Sokaerno in the late 1940’s. 1*1 With such military

backgrounds, these groups had manifest to use it as a threat towards the western worlds.

This threat however, intensifies after several assumptions to affiliate those

individual terrorist groups with Al-Qaeda movement, the cornerstone of any terrorist

establishment in the modern day history. Based on the findings of Rohan Gunaratna, a

British based terrorism specialist, many of the leaders of the southeast Asian terrorist

groups are those who had been educated in the Middle East, speaks Arabic distinctively

unlike the Asian Muslims, and were radically bent by their participation of the Jihadist

movement who fought in Afghanistan.*22

1
http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/35795.pdf
2
Gunaratna, Rohan ,Inside Al Qaeda, (2007) New York: Columbia University Press,
p.12
 It seems almost systematically that the dispersal of the terrorist group to exist in

each country of the Southeast Asia. In these endeavors, al-Qaeda provided ideological,

financial, and operational support to groups such as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front

(MILF) and Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in the Philippines; Lashkar Jundullah in

Indonesia; Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia (KMM) in Malaysia; Jemmah Salafiyah (JS)

in Thailand; Arakan Rohingya Nationalist Organization (ARNO) and Rohingya

Solidarity Organisation (RSO) in Myanmar and Bangladesh; and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a

Southeast Asian organization with a presence in Australia.3 Therefore, one could

understand deeper through analyzing these terrorist groups in accordance to the region of

which it’s origin and activities had been carried out mainly in Indonesia, Philipines,

Thailand and Malaysia.

Indonesia’s attractiveness to Islamic terrorist groups appears to derive primarily

from weak central government control and considerable social and political instability

and its overwhelmingly Muslim population. There was a time when Islamic Political

parties had pressured President Megawati, the former President of Indonesia to condemn

the U.S-led military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan but protecting the American

assets in Indonesia as well. Muslim-Christian strife in the country’s remote regions has

attracted the involvement of thousands of foreign Islamic radicals, including, apparently,

some with Al Qaeda connections.4

3
Rohan Gunaratna, Interviews with jihadist groups in Southeast Asia in 2003-4.
4
Richard Paddock, “Indonesia Presses U.S. to Stop Bombing Asia,” Los
Angeles Times,
 In addition to that, although the majority of Muslims in Indonesia follow a

moderate form of Islam, there are traces of fundamentalist Islamic theology which had

taken a much radical face and began to gain popularity amongst the people. With a weak

central government authorities and smaller units of state governments, it seems inevitable

that the terrorist group could take on advantage at any time.5 Another reason of the

insurgence of a radical Islamic terrorist group is the frustration of the few population

towards economic inequalities. This was seen indirectly as a product of the western

power interventions with the locals making a few handful of the population (mostly non-

muslims) overwhelmingly rich through monopolization of resources. Therefore the

several bombings that took place in Jakarta and Bali were targeted towards the western

tourists and foreign investors who are staying over hotels as such.

Philipines on the other hand has the threat from both fundamentalist Muslim as

well as the Communist Party’s military wing. The fundamentalis Muslim group consist of

Abu Sayyaf (Bearer of the Sword) is an outgrowth of the long-term struggle for

autonomy in the southern Philippines, and completely opposed to any accommodation

with the Christians and believes that violent action is the only solution. 6 They believed

that the Philipines had been built over by Muslim people such as José Rizal and Islam

should be the rightful majority religion of Philipines today. Its founder Abdurajak

Janjalani was a veteran of the Afghanistan conflict who had brought back with him

enthusiastic followers of radical Islamic ideology. However, the group has recently

November 2, 2001.
5
Ibid.
6
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/intguide/FAD/sea.htm
suffered from serious internal divisions and its factions – whose interests appear to be

primarily criminal and deviated from their original purpose.7 While acts of terrorism

carried out by the Abu Sayyaf group includes abducting foreign western missionaries and

guirella combats with the state army, the Philipines Communist Party mainly focused on

terrorizing the American officials that linked to intimidate the establishment of U.S

military base in the Philipines.

Thailand has a somewhat similar case with the Philipines, on which the terrorist

group existed as a separatist movement to alienate the Muslim majority population from a

non-Islamic government. Thailand’s predominantly Muslim southern provinces, such as

Yala, Patthani and Narathiwat had intensified the focus on Islamic extremism in the

country. This led to a bloody conflict of January 2004 where 250 people have

been killed in violence in the majority Muslim provinces and ultimately

through several coordinated series of raids, the Thai troops had

crossed the limits by particularly the slaying of 32 Muslim men who

had retreated into the Krue Se mosque. Although the Government has

criticized the military’s actions as an “excessive use of force”, this

would not stop from the insurgence of a muslim terrorist groups to

counter-attack. The violence has forced Thai authorities to publicly re-

evaluate the threat of a Muslim separatist insurgency with financial

and operational ties to international Islamic terrorist groups.8

7
Ibid. , http://www.aph.gov.au/library/intguide/FAD/sea.htm
8
“Thai Mosque Killings Criticized,” BBC News. July 28, 2004.
 Finally, Malaysia may not seem to be housing the any forms of

outright radical terrorist groups but to a certain extend it was reported

that it has been a hub, used as a meeting and staging grounds to

conduct terrorist acts internationally. Even in the making of 9/11, Kuala

Lumpur had been short-listed as transit place involved in harbouring

international terrorist group since Malaysia allows visa-free entry to the

citizen of most Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia9.*9 In addition to

that, the Indonesian Government had also a habit of putting the blame

of terrorist acts in the recent bombings of the Marriot Hotel, Jakarta as

the brainchild of a Malaysian, namely, Nordin Mat Top.

9
The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 158.