Contents

Terrorism in Southeast Asia

Dr Frank Frost, Analysis and Policy
Ann Rann, Information/E-links
Andrew Chin, Information/E-links
Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Group

The Bali bombings on 12 October 2002 have directed attention to the issues that Southeast Asia is a region conducive to the activities of both indigenous and international terrorist groups, and that elements of the two have been closely interlinked. The bombings have also emphasised that at a time when extensive attention is being directed towards the problem of Iraq, the ‘war on terror’ pursued since September 11 2001 is far from won. This E-Brief discusses factors facilitating terrorist groups in Southeast Asia, the activities of Al Qaeda in Southeast Asia, and outlines key groups involved.

The regional environment for terrorism

Southeast Asia has frequently had episodes of political violence which have either been explicitly or closely linked to ‘terrorism’. These have included activities by Communist groups (for example in Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines) and activities directed against ruling Communist regimes (such as the bomb attacks in Laos in 2000-2001). Terrorism has also at times been state-sponsored or condoned, as in the case of Christian anti-separatist groups in the southern Philippines (opposing Muslim secessionists) and militias in East Timor, Papua and other parts of Indonesia.

However, developments since the Afghanistan war in the 1980s (in which US-supported mujahidin guerillas fought the Soviet occupation forces) have fostered and introduced new elements into terrorism in the region. Several factors have been important:

• The Afghan experience has been central to the recent development of more radical Islamic groups in Southeast Asia. The great majority of Southeast Asia’s estimated 230 million Muslims (20 percent of the world total) have moderate and tolerant views and have been willing to coexist with other religious groups and secular institutions. However, the more strident and anti-pluralist vein of Islam propounded from areas such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan has had an appeal to a minority. This appeal was deepened by the process of international recruitment for the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan and many leaders of Southeast Asia’s radical Islamic groups served or trained there. In addition, many Southeast Asians have studied in madrasas (religious schools) - either in Southeast Asian countries or overseas, for example in Pakistan - where a more strict interpretation of Islam is taught.

• The advent of a large-scale and radical Islamic resistance in Afghanistan also added a new dimension to Southeast Asian Islamic separatism, whereby local groups could now gain added inspiration, assistance and funding from prestigious and well-financed international movements. Southeast Asia up to the 1980s already had several regionalist and separatist Islamic based movements, notably in southern Thailand, the long running resistance in Aceh and especially in the southern Philippines. While the Afghanistan conflict had comparatively little impact on the situation in southern Thailand or in Aceh it has had a major impact on the southern Philippines, where Islamic radicals have found added sources of support and finance.

• Socio-economic factors have fostered further support for radical Islamic groups in the region. Efforts to attain autonomy by Islamic movements have often either been resisted by central governments or have been implemented ineffectively (as in the southern Philippines). The Asian financial crisis since 1997 has also put pressures on regional governments and spending on crucial areas such as education has been restricted. This has increased the attraction of religious schools. Furthermore, well-funded Islamic radical movements have been able to offer financial support both to adherents and their families (for example in the event of death in combat). This has had considerable appeal to those in outlying and economically disadvantaged areas.

• Several additional factors make Southeast Asian states ‘countries of convenience’ for terrorist activists and groups.

• Borders are often porous and immigration controls and systems of administration weak. Malaysia for example has not until recently required visas for anyone from Muslim countries which are members of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC). The Philippines has a weak immigration system and it is easy for foreigners to marry Filipino citizens and effectively change their identity. Administrative requirements can also be circumvented through corruption.

• There are long-standing economic and trade links between Southeast Asia and Middle Eastern and South Asian countries, many of them outside normal financial channels and not readily monitored by governments. These have facilitated funds transfers from the Middle East and South Asia to radical groups in the region.

• Criminal activity (including drugs traffic) is widespread in the region and can assist resources movement by radical groups.

• Southeast Asia has large supplies of weapons, both indigenously produced and imported.

Al Qaeda in Southeast Asia

It is increasingly evident that Southeast Asia has become an important arena for international terrorism, notably Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is a highly decentralised and elusive transnational terrorist network that is difficult to identify and combat. The International Institute of Strategic Studies has argued that while Al Qaeda has been damaged by coalition operations since September 11 in Afghanistan and elsewhere, the organisation may well retain two thirds of its core leadership and the great majority of the approximately 20,000 activists who were trained in its Afghan camps after 1996.

The British based terrorism specialist Rohan Gunaratna estimated in early 2002 that about one fifth of Al Qaeda’s organisational strength was in Asia overall. Gunaratna argues that:

In Southeast Asia, Al Qaeda’s activities appear to have been concentrated in the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. Al Qaeda established contacts in Southeast Asia from 1988 and established a logistics base in the Philippines in the early 1990s. This base included use of Islamic charities and specially established businesses to channel funds. While many of its activities remain to be revealed, it has been alleged that Al Qaeda developed ambitious plans to conduct a series of bombings of airlines in the region, as several cases have illustrated.:

• A series of attacks and assassinations was planned by the Pakistan-born Al Qaeda member Ramzi Yousef (who had led the bomb attack on the World Trade Center in New York in February 1993). Yousef came close to destroying a Philippines Airlines flight from Manila to Tokyo with a bomb in November 1994. He also was involved in planning a series of bombings and assassinations before his plans were uncovered after bomb components set off a fire in his Manila apartment in February 1995. Al Qaeda went on, however. to establish extensive links with two radical groups, Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), both based in the southern Philippines (see below).

• Another activist, Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, born in Indonesia and trained by Al Qaeda, operated extensively in the Philippines and organised a series of five bombings in Manila on 30 December 2000 which killed 22 and injured over 100.

• Another major plan was uncovered by Singapore’s Internal Security Department and revealed in January 2002. Singapore activists associated with the radical Islamic group Jemaah Islamiah planned with external help to develop large truck bombs to attack targets in Singapore. These included US personnel, installations including the US Embassy and possibly the adjacent Australian High Commission.

Arrests in Singapore and later Malaysia and the Philippines since late 2001 suggest that Jemaah Islamiah (JI) has had an extensive capacity to organise a large and possibly still largely unknown network of ‘sleeper cells’, both logistical and operational (as an official Singapore statement on these issues from September 2002 has argued). Jemaah Islamiah appears to operate in loose association with several other groups including the Moro Islamic Liberation Frost (MILF) and, according to Rohan Gunaratna, together they have been ‘part of a regional terrorist network operating under the aegis of Al Qaeda. JI is conceivably Al Qaeda’s instrument connecting mainstream and renegade terrorists and guerrilla elements in the region.’ (Gunaratna p 193).

Major radical and/or terrorist groups in Southeast Asia

Terrorist groups have been reported to be active in at least four countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. Several groups have been accused of having links with Al-Qaeda and several have links with other movements in the region.

Jemaah Islamiah (JI) was founded in the mid-1990s and has the grand aim of establishing an independent Islamic state encompassing Indonesia, Malaysia and the southern islands of the Philippines. Intelligence officials (notably from Singapore) have investigated the group since it came to wide attention in January 2002. JI has also been implicated in a number of bombings including those in Manila in December 2000. JI is alleged to be led by a radical Indonesian cleric, Abu Bakar Bashir, who runs a Muslim boarding school in Solo, central Java (Bashir, also sometimes described as the movement’s ‘spiritual leader’, has denied in recent interviews a connection with JI). The plot to stage bombings in Singapore was allegedly organised by a deputy to Bashir, Riduan Isamuddin, also known as Hambali (whose current location is unknown). JI is thought to be associated with other groups including the Kumpulan Mujahideen Malaysia (KMM). Singapore has alleged that JI received some funding from Al Qaeda over three years. Singapore officials have also claimed that Hambali has been seeking to coordinate the activities of JI with Muslim radicals in Thailand and separatists in the southern Philippines, especially the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) into an alliance called Rabatitul Mujaihidin.

Laskar Jihad (LJ) was established as the paramilitary wing of Forum Komunikasi Ahlus Sunnah wal Jammah (Communications Forum of the Followers of the Sunnah), established in Jogjakarta in early 1998. The LJ was formed on 30 January 2000 in response to religious violence in Maluku. The LJ arranged for military training to be given to volunteers at a camp in Bogor, near Jakarta. The LJ sent several thousand fighters to Maluku in the months after April 2000. The Brussels based non-governmental organisation the International Crisis Group has stated that ‘The conclusion is unavoidable that the LJ received the backing of elements in the military and the police. It was obviously military officers who provided them with military training and neither the military nor the police made any serious effort to carry out the President’s order preventing them from going to Maluku’. LJ claims a three part mission – social work, Muslim education and a ‘security mission’ and it has had over 10,000 members, some of whom have been active in eastern Indonesia in communal violence. Laskar Jihad has gained support from Indonesia’s armed forces (TNI) and has also been able to embezzle money from the military (over $US 9 million). Its founder claims to have rejected approaches from Al-Qaeda but supported the September 11 attacks in the US. In mid October, Laskar Jihad announced that it had been disbanded but the veracity of this claim has yet to be determined decisively.

The Front Pembela Islam (Islamic Defenders Front–FPI) is another Indonesian radical Islamic group. The FPI was formed in August 1998 and now claims branches in 22 provinces. Based in Jakarta, the FPI is led by Habib Muhammad Riziek Syihab, a religious teacher who was educated in Saudi Arabia. Like Habib, many of the top FPI leaders have Arab blood. The FPI’s stated goal is the full implementation of Islamic Sharia law, although it supports Indonesia’s present constitution and avoids calling for an Islamic state. The FPI has a paramilitary wing called Laskar Pembela Islam and is well know for organising raids on bars, massage parlours and gaming halls. The FPI justifies these raids on the grounds that the police are unable to uphold laws on gambling and prostitution. Sceptical observers suspect that the police turn a blind eye to, or are complicit in, these activities, knowing that the victims will be encouraged to maintain protection monies to the police. The FPI in late 2001 took the lead in threatening to sweep Americans out of Indonesia because of the US operations in Afghanistan, although the threat was not in fact carried out.

Abu Sayyaf (Bearer of the Sword) is an outgrowth of the long-term struggle for autonomy in the southern Philippines, is opposed to any accommodation with the Christians and believes that violent action is the only solution. Abu Sayyaf has mounted terror and criminal attacks since 1991 and directed a wave of such attacks against Christian civilians in 1993. Its founder Abdurajak Janjalani was a veteran of the Afghanistan conflict who had brought back with him enthusiastic followers of radical Islamic ideology. It has strong Al-Qaeda links – Osama bin Laden is reported to have sent the Pakistani terrorist Ramzi Yousef (who attacked the World Trade Center in 1993) for training with Abu Sayyaf and Al Qaeda has given financial assistance. Abu Sayyaf has also gained extensive revenue from kidnapping – including a $25 million payment from Libya to free hostages in March 2000. The group has recently suffered from serious internal divisions and its factions – whose interests appear to be primarily criminal - are now thought to have possibly about 500 members.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has disclaimed connections with Al-Qaeda but hundreds of its members are reported to have trained with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. MILF split from the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) which had led a struggle for autonomy for Muslim areas of the southern Philippines from 1972. The MNLF suffered a series of setbacks in the 1990s, with a number of leaders either defecting to the government or joining MILF. MILF is led by Hashim Salamat who was educated at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University. MILF’s eventual aim is an independent Moro Muslim state and by the 1990s it had become the primary Moro rebel movement. The movement has been able to gain funds from sympathetic Islamic organisation abroad, including in Malaysia, Pakistan and the Middle East. It has had up to 35,000 members and has trained members of other groups, including JI. Major problems confront the goal of an Islamic Moro state, not least the fact that long-term immigration into the southern Philippines means that non-Muslims outnumber Muslims in most provinces of Mindanao.

The New People’s Army (NPA) was declared to be a terrorist organisation by the US government in August 2002 but it is a different kind of group from those discussed above. The NPA is the military wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and is a further Philippines radical group. Although primarily a rural based group, the NPA has an active urban infrastructure to conduct terrorism and uses city based assassination squads. The NPA derives most of its funds from contributions by supporters in the Philippines, Europe and elsewhere and from ‘revolutionary taxes’ levied on businesses. The NPA opposes any US miliary presence and reports in 2001 suggest that it seeks to target US personnel – its strength is estimated at over 10,000.

Countering Terrorism

The level and character of the threat posed by terrorist groups in Southeast Asia is difficult to estimate precisely. It is not fully clear, for example, whether Al Qaeda has tight linkages with regional networks (like Jemaah Islamiah) or whether the regionally-based groups operate with more limited liaison or advice from Al Qaeda. It is clear, however, that there has been significant terrorist activities in the past decade, that Al Qaeda has been involved in some of these, and that a major threat continues, as the Bali bombings have tragically illustrated.

Since the attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001, efforts have increased to coordinate regional and international action against terrorism in Southeast Asia. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) announced increased cooperation at its annual ministerial meetings in July-August 2002. During these meetings, the United States also signed an anti-terrorism agreement with ASEAN members on 30 July.

As well as supporting international anti-terrorism efforts generally, Australia has signed Memorandums of Understanding with several Southeast Asian countries. The most recent agreement with Thailand builds on the existing strong links between Australian and Thai law enforcement, defence and security agencies. Under the MOU, Australian and Thai agencies will exchange information and intelligence on international terrorist activities and related transnational organised crime. Agencies will also focus on combating the financing of terrorism and countering money laundering.

Terrorism in Southeast Asia is being pursued in an environment in which locally-derived issues factors have contributed to the basis of support for the groups involved. Increased efforts are needed to pursue law-enforcement measures in regional states – a task which is likely to be especially difficult in the case of Indonesia (see Stephen Sherlock, ‘The Bali Bombing: What it Means for Indonesia’, Current Issues Brief, 22 October 2002). However, further attention will also be needed to alleviate the social and economic disadvantage which has fuelled radical groups, especially in certain regions such as the southern Philippines (as the US analyst John Gershman has recently argued).

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