Singapore fears backlash in SE Asia if U.S. attacks Iraq
Singapore fears backlash in SE Asia if U.S. attacks Iraq
Associated Press, Singapore
Southeast Asia, beset by terror jitters after last month's Bali bombings, would face a Muslim backlash and be plunged into crisis if the United States strikes Iraq, Singapore's leader said on Wednesday.
"The next crisis for our region will be the war against Iraq," Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said in a speech to Singapore's Institute of International Affairs.
Goh said war with Iraq was "likely" and it would have "serious implications" for the region, hurting economies and triggering an anti-U.S. backlash among Muslims.
"Besides its impact on the economies, it will arouse strong anti-American feelings among the region's Muslim populations," he said.
Singapore is about to finalize a free trade deal with Washington and can ill afford such a backlash. The wealthy, predominantly Chinese city state is a staunch U.S. ally and is located between Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, and majority Muslim Malaysia.
Rohan Gunaratna, a Singapore-based terror expert who has written a book on al-Qaeda, said that despite crackdowns against extremists in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, terrorists in the region remain intent on harming U.S. allies, making Singapore a prime target. A strike against Iraq will only harden that resolve, he said.
"The flow of recruits to ... terror groups and extremist political groups will increase as a result of a U.S. intervention in Iraq," Gunaratna said, adding it would also prompt more focussed attacks against "U.S. friends and allies in the region."
During the past year, the Singapore government has announced several alleged terror plots against the country's international airport, Western embassies, the defense ministry and the water supply.
The government says members of Jamaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaeda- linked Islamic militant group aiming to establish a pan-Islamic state in Southeast Asia, masterminded the plots. Jamaah Islamiyah is also suspected to have been behind the Oct. 12 bombings of nightclubs on the Indonesian island of Bali, which killed nearly 200 people, mostly foreign tourists.
The Bali attack "reinforced our fear that Southeast Asia has become the new theater of operation for al-Qaeda," Goh said.