A terrifying tale of terror right here, right now

Rich Simons, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Seeds of Terror Maria Ressa Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 2003 254 pp US$26

The profundity of Maria Ressa's account of the inner workings of al-Qaeda and their terror partners in Southeast Asia, particularly Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) in Indonesia and Abu Sayyaf and others of their ilk in the Phillipines, is wholly mind- blowing. She provides an on-the-ground picture of how those relationships developed in the 1980s and 1990s that is at once nail-biting, frightening and intriguing.

Most of the local groups were operating on shoestring budgets and way below their own governments' radars, but al-Qaeda, with its seemingly unlimited cash reserves emanating mostly from in and around Saudi Arabia and Osama bin Laden specifically, brought them all together. It provided funding not only for weapons and training, but also for exporting its austere form of Islam -- Wahhabism -- by setting up well-funded schools all over Southeast Asia.

One of the great ironies, which she so eloquently points out, is that in the 1980s, Southeast Asia was up to its ears in dictators and the cry was for democracy, people power and reformasi, which eventually won out. As Ressa says: "Ironically, democracy -- the nemesis of (extremist) Islam -- helped create the conditions under which their (extremist) ideology could spread in Southeast Asia."

Many of Indonesia's citizens, including folks such as the Vice President, still have a hard time believing that JI really exists, let alone that Java Island houses its main headquarters and most of its top leaders. Many also have not come to grips with the reality that two of their own, Abu Bakar Ba'asyir and Hambali (Nurjaman Riduan Isamuddin), now in U.S. custody, are extremely dangerous, high-ranking al-Qaeda leaders.

In fact, Hambali, according to Ressa and others, is the only non-Arab on the al-Qaeda "politburo", or leadership council, along with such notable names as Osama, Al-Zawahiri, Khalid Shaik Mohammed, etc.

She introduces into evidence some very damning information and convincingly proves to readers that Ba'asyir is the cofounder of JI and its current emir and spiritual leader. Even though he is currently in police custody (and was when it went to print), she calls him the "most dangerous man alive".

Ressa is meticulous in demonstrating how al-Qaeda operatives and "sleepers" like Omar al-Faruq always operated in the vacuum of lag time, while the government intelligence agencies tried to keep up. It reminds one of the computer virus makers and their constant battle to stay a step or two ahead of the antivirus software makers, however the real foreboding part about this analogy is, not only that computer viruses do not kill holidaymakers by the hundreds on Bali, but that the intelligence and law enforcement groups are way more than one or two steps behind the bombers and assassins -- they are like several months, even years, behind.

One thing that strikes a reader is that while watching CNN and Ressa, in particular, there a seeming dearth of this interesting and profound analysis. It often appears as if Ressa is just another of those attractive "talking head" types who provide little deep understanding of what is actually going on. But such an assumption could not be further from the truth -- this book demonstrates that she really knows the score, and is quite obviously several steps ahead of most intelligence agencies in Southeast Asia and the world.

Part of the reason for that, as she points out, is that in the Philippines and Indonesia the agencies do not maintain a regularly updated comprehensive database, with analysts constantly piecing together all the seemingly unremarkable events in various corners of the archipelago and around Southeast Asia.

Many agents -- and she knows just about all of them personally -- actually ask her for intelligence information! She notes that the majority of the agents keep their data and reports "close to the vest" in their own offices, because inter alia, they want to personally score the big coup without sharing the spoils. So, as the petty rivalries continue, the suicide bombers laugh all the way to "paradise".

For the finale she launches into a bit of tirade against the U.S. -- neither difficult nor original -- and concludes that the U.S.-led war on terror will provide more recruits for terror groups across the globe. But this is a tenuous connection, because the very premise assumes that people around the world are inherently uncivilized and predisposed to random murder if provoked. It seems a tad patronizing and holier-than-thou, coming from political analysts and journalists.

And so they pontificate as if it were a foregone conclusion that the "commoners" among them -- those not as educated or rational as themselves -- would "naturally" have the moral right to blow themselves up in a crowd full of Jews, Americans or Australians at a nightclub or a supermarket.

Aside from that, one of the best aspects of the book is its very peronal, narrative style. At one point she recounts a time when she was having dinner in Manila and a small bomb went off at a nearby theater. She and CNN reported it at the time, but nothing else was heard of it thereafter. She puts all the pieces together, once again, in the book and details how it was a "test run" by one of the top al-Qaeda explosives experts.

In parts, it reads like a riveting fiction spy thriller a la Ian Fleming with his monstrous, all-powerful evildoers intent upon world domination. But we all know those stories are just figments of Fleming's wonderfully outlandish imagination. What makes this story so ominous and terrifying is that it is so very real and it is happening here and now.

Alas, there is no James Bond on the horizon to save the day, the world or all of us who eat at pizza parlors.