SE Asia religious groups sent thousands for `terror training'<\/p>\n
Agence France-Presse, Sydney, Australia<\/p>\n
Religious groups across Southeast Asia sent up to 3,000 followers
\nto Afghanistan and the Philippines to be trained as terrorists,
\naccording to a U.S. study widely reported here.<\/p>\n
Many more radicals than previously realized have been trained
\nand sent home to Southeast Asian countries to set up sleeper
\nterrorist cells, warns Boston-based professor Zachary Abuza, who
\nprepared the document.<\/p>\n
Abuza's report, Tentacles of Terror -- al-Qaeda's Southeast
\nAsian Network, says most of the radicals had committed themselves
\nto religious war in their home countries, Malaysia, Indonesia and
\nthe Philippines.<\/p>\n
\"Most Southeast Asians returned and set about committing
\nthemselves to running jihads at home, recruiting followers in an
\nattempt to create Islamic states governed by Sharia law,\" it
\nsays.<\/p>\n
The report, quoted extensively by The Australian newspaper and
\nABC radio, says ties formed nine years ago between regional
\nnetwork Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda are
\nnow being identified at an alarming rate.<\/p>\n
JI, recently outlawed, has been blamed for the Oct. 12 Bali
\nbombing in which more than 190 people were killed, almost half of
\nthem Australian.<\/p>\n
Abuza believes bin Laden saw Southeast Asia as a region of
\ngreat potential for recruitment and fomenting Islamic revolution.<\/p>\n
The region includes a number of countries with weak
\ngovernments, porous borders, identity theft and laundering,
\naccess to arms markets, and corrupt bureaucracies that give
\nterrorists space to train and operate.<\/p>\n
The report says the terrorist mastermind had also identified
\nIndonesia as a vulnerable link in the region, adding: \"Al-Qaeda
\nhas taken advantage of the political instability and has looked
\nupon Indonesia as a new frontier.\"<\/p>\n
Abuza, who has made submissions to Australian Federal Police
\nbased on his information, told ABC radio the region now harbored
\nsome 1,000 potential terrorists trained in Afghanistan and the
\nPhilippines.<\/p>\n
He also believed JI is an organization of at most 500 people,
\nmany of whose senior leaders had recently been caught.<\/p>\n
Abuza, from Boston's Simmons College, said U.S. special forces
\nhad played an important role in helping the Philippines military
\neliminate training camps run by Philippines rebel groups Abu
\nSayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).<\/p>\n
Most JI members appeared to have trained at MILF-run camps in
\nthe Philippines, Abuza said.<\/p>\n
But the war on terrorism had eliminated camps in Afghanistan
\nand the Philippines.<\/p>",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
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