A terrifying tale of terror right here, right now

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.