Terror threat looms in SE Asia region

Terror threat looms in SE Asia region

Shefali Rekhi, Asia News Network/The Straits Times, Singapore

Shadowy armed groups of militants still haunt the Southeast Asian region intent on building a caliphate, four years after the war against terror commenced globally in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington.

And despite the arrest of hundreds of militants and jihadist leaders of the region's dreaded al-Qaeda-linked Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) terror group, the threat of an attack still lurks.

But a large-scale attack seems unlikely, experts say, though two of JI's top bombmakers - Azahari bin Husin and Noordin Mohd Top - remain on the run as they are unable to muster adequate support.

Yet, information gleaned from a host of smaller attacks and foiled bombing plans suggests that the militants are working hard to rebuild their network.

They are seeking new recruits, working on affiliations with smaller like-minded groups not linked to them before and sharing bomb-making expertise with militants elsewhere in the region - mainly the Philippines - to make them more lethal.

Information filtering in from other countries suggests they are also working to improve their finances and mobilizing arms.

Philippine documents revealed this week that Indonesian militants, together with Abu Sayyaf, were soliciting funding from Middle East financiers.

The authorities at the Kolkata Port Trust in India last week detained an arms-laden ship - with 20 tons of explosives - bound for Indonesia, although it was not clear who the shipment was meant for.

The mounting insurgency in southern Thailand is another major source of worry with experts saying the area could become a magnet for militants from elsewhere in the region and the Middle East.

A string of beheadings in June and 10 remote-controlled bombings thus far indicate that the insurgents in Thai south are taking lessons from Iraq.

"Developments in Iraq remain the biggest concern," said Singapore based counter-terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna.

"In many of our interviews with militant groups in the region, we found that they want to go and participate in the ongoing war in Iraq. It is a matter of time...militants from Asia head to Iraq," he told The Straits Times.

There is also the fear of a resurgence of the al-Qaeda in Afghanistan with officials in Kabul saying last week that the terror group was pushing for foreign fighters to return to the country.

But for countries in Southeast Asia, a bigger concern should be the fallout from Pakistan's decision to repatriate foreign students as part of a continuing crackdown on religious schools, long seen as the breeding ground for extremism. Students from Malaysia, Indonesia and southern Thailand have been studying at these schools.

So has the war on terrorism made any impact?

Terrorism-watchers are certain it has and is the reason why security within the region is in much better shape today than it was four years ago.

"It has become very difficult for states to sponsor terrorism now and militants have been deterred from proceeding with many of their plans," says Ajai Sahni, executive director of the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management.