U.S. faces dilemma in war on terror in Asia

U.S. faces dilemma in war on terror in Asia

P. Parameswaran, Agence France Presse/Washington

In the fight against terrorism in Asia, the United States faces a new dilemma: devising strategies against violent national armed groups in Asia with have potential to internationalize their operations.

While Washington has branded at least 10 high-profile groups in the region international terrorist organizations and crippled their financial networks, there are others which cannot be isolated due to local sensitivities and ambiguity of their operations, officials and experts say.

Moving aggressively against these groups could backfire as they are seen as localized problems requiring national or regional solutions.

But they groups could pose international problems if not nipped in the bud, the experts told a Washington symposium which reviewed the U.S. war on terrorism in Asia since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

"It is actually quite sensitive," William Pope, the principal deputy coordinator for counterterrorism in the State Department, told the "Strategic Asia and the war on terrorism" meeting last week. "It is very difficult to deal with that kind of thing."

There are several movements in the region "that clearly are terrorists but still seem to have principally a kind of secessionist agenda or local agenda or something like that," Pope said.

"Definitely (they are) terrorists but not global or international type terrorists."

Pope did not identify them but there are several groups from India, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Pakistan on the radar screens of U.S. counterterrorism officials.

"There are certainly international connections to some. It is something that we work on, that we try to follow. We do look at it on a case by case basis.

"There is no formula, I wish we had one," Pope said.

But he said the United States would not hesitate to brand groups as international terrorists if their violent activities harmed foreigners.

"When it is international terrorism, we will call it that. When foreigners are involved then it becomes an act of international terrorists whatever the nationalities of the perpetrators," he said.

Among Asian groups which the United States has been asked to label as terrorists are Free Aceh Movement (GAM), the separatist movement in the Indonesian province of Aceh, and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), seeking an independent state in the southern Philippines.

The MILF has forged a cease-fire with the Philippine government, with which it has held several rounds of initial peace talks.

The Indonesian authorities have declared martial law in Aceh and are involved in fierce battles with GAM guerrillas seeking independence for the small oil-rich province in the southern tip of the island of Sumatra.

Dana Dillon, senior policy analyst for Southeast Asia at the U.S.-based Heritage Foundation, said Washington should list GAM as a foreign terrorist organization as part of support for Indonesia's battle against terrorism.

"Placing GAM on the (terror) list would demonstrate American empathy with Indonesia's security threats, national unity, and territorial integrity," he said in a report calling on U.S. Congress to lift sanctions on Jakarta's military following elections in the largest Muslim democracy.

"American ambivalence toward GAM is not lost on the Indonesian government and may account for some of Indonesia's reluctance to endorse the American approach to the war on terrorism," Dillon said.

Aside from staging violence locally, GAM "is an active member of the worldwide terrorist underground," he said, accusing its leaders of meeting with the top brass of al-Qaeda and its Southeast Asian wing, Jamaah Islamiyah, and smuggling weapons together with a southern Thailand separatist group, the Pattani United Liberation Organization.