Asia's terror groups down but not out<\/p>\n
Dan Eaton, Reuters, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Working less like a corporation with branch offices and more like
\nmafia-style family groups, Islamic militant cells in Asia have
\nshown amazing resilience in the face of global efforts to
\neliminate terror.<\/p>\n
After almost two years of intelligence operations and hundreds
\nof arrests, Asian security forces still stand on high alert
\nagainst radicals determined to stage deadly attacks.<\/p>\n
But the only certainty, say analysts and intelligence
\noperatives, is that someone, somewhere is planning attacks and
\none will inevitably succeed.<\/p>\n
"I believe there are new operations being planned and some of
\nthem may be very severe indeed," said Ross Babbage, head of the
\nStrategic and Defence Studies Centre in Australia's capital,
\nCanberra.<\/p>\n
Captured militants interrogated by security services have
\nalready revealed much larger and less homogeneous networks than
\npreviously thought -- many with only tenuous links and even more
\ndisparate goals.<\/p>\n
"We have made some progress, damaged some capabilities, but a
\nlot more progress is required before we can start relaxing," said
\nBabbage, a former senior Australian intelligence officer.<\/p>\n
Huge progress has been made through hundreds of arrests and
\nenhanced cooperation between Asian security services, but the
\nhunt may also be feeding the violence.<\/p>\n
Uday Bhaskar, a former Indian navy commodore now with the New
\nDelhi-based Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis, said some
\ndormant terror cells had been stirred into action since the
\ndeadly attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.<\/p>\n
The attack on the United Nations' Iraq headquarters in
\nBaghdad, the blast at a U.S.-run hotel in Indonesia and bombings
\nin India's commercial hub, Mumbai (Bombay), were the most recent
\nexamples of a pattern, he said.<\/p>\n
"I say this with great regret, that this is a pattern that is
\nonly going to increase or intensify in the next few months."<\/p>\n
Despite last month's arrest of the man suspected of being one
\nof the kingpins of the shadowy Southeast Asian network known as
\nJamaah Islamiyah (JI), analysts say the group remains active and
\ndangerous.<\/p>\n
"The information emerging from the interrogation of JI
\nsuspects is a bigger organization than previously thought, with a
\ndepth of leadership," said Sidney Jones, Indonesia project
\ndirector for the International Crisis Group (ICG), in a recent
\nreport.<\/p>\n
Jamaah Islamiyah is believed by many experts to be the
\nregional arm of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, blamed for
\nthe Sept. 11 attacks that precipitated the U.S.-led war in
\nAfghanistan and turned the spotlight on Asia.<\/p>\n
In the past year, more than 200 people suspected of having
\nlinks with JI have been taken into custody in Indonesia,
\nMalaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines.<\/p>\n
But the Indonesian hotel bombing showed the group remained
\ndangerous despite many of its suspected operatives being detained
\nor jailed since last year's attack in Bali in which 202 people
\nwere killed.<\/p>\n
Asian authorities say that while JI has received funding and
\ntraining from al-Qaeda, the group has different goals and takes
\nmajor operational decisions independently.<\/p>\n
"All... groups tend to be lumped together. Their motives can
\nbe quite different," Uday Bhaskar said.<\/p>\n
The Mumbai blasts, for example, have been blamed on the
\nStudents Islamic Movement of India in conjunction with a
\nPakistan-based Kashmiri separatist group, while the aim of the
\nIndonesian attacks was to bring about the downfall of the secular
\ngovernment and the creation of a pan-regional Islamic State.<\/p>\n
But the links exist.<\/p>\n
The ICG report said JI was held together not just by ideology
\nand training, but also through a network of marriages -- a sort
\nof extended family with thousands of members.<\/p>\n
The network relies heavily on a small circle of religious
\nboarding schools -- an "Ivy League" according to the ICG -- to
\nwhich members send their children.<\/p>\n
"We will only be able to declare victory when all the main
\nmullahs and others say without reservation that anyone who
\nengages in this is a criminal and worse," said Babbage.<\/p>\n
But a nugget of good news has emerged.<\/p>\n
Experts say some JI members were questioning the justification
\nfor a campaign in which many of those killed or wounded were
\ncountrymen. "Internal rifts have destroyed more than one radical
\norganization; perhaps they will seriously weaken this one," the
\nICG report said.<\/p>",
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