With such complex terrorism links, can Southeast Asia be safe again?

Lee Kim Chew, The Straits Times, Asia News Network, Singapore

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, by shutting down madrasahs, or religious schools, in his campaign against Islamic militants and expelling thousands of unregistered foreign students, is, in effect, re-exporting an irksome problem.

The hordes of displaced Afghans, disillusioned Arabs and disenfranchised Rohingyas that he sends packing home are a combustible lot who had sought refuge and religious instruction in Pakistan's madrasahs.

These students are a problem for two main reasons: First, most of them have no marketable skills beyond Islamic knowledge and they are virtually unemployable.

Second, they have been indoctrinated with the ultra- conservative brand of Islam that the likes of the Taliban practice. As such, they are natural recruits for Osama bin Laden and those of his ilk.

By ridding Pakistan of these unwelcome guests, Gen. Musharraf has passed the buck, as it were.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is among those in Southeast Asia who will have to grapple with a growing number of these madrasah returnees.

He has a problem because Islamic students from Malaysia had enrolled in Pakistan's religious schools in droves over the past few years, and they now form the biggest group among the foreigners studying there.

The Malaysian government has no clue just how many of its nationals are in the madrasahs, which are unregulated and privately funded.

As of December last year, about 100 of the 3,500 foreign students attending religious schools in Lahore, Peshawar and Karachi are Malaysians, according to Indian security expert B. Raman of the Institute of Topical Studies in Chennai, India.

This is a rather conservative estimate, given the thousands of madrasahs with their hordes of unregistered foreign students in Pakistan.

Juhaidi Yean Abdullah, an aide to Kelantan's UMNO liaison chief Mustapa Mohamed, says these graduates often set up their own madrasahs when they return to Kelantan and Terengganu, the two east-coast states ruled by Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), as they are unable to get jobs.

It becomes a self-perpetuating problem when these Islamic schools produce yet more religious graduates to swell the ranks of the unemployable.

Marginalized, they could become disaffected Islamic militants and radicalize Malaysian politics. Is this, then, an Islamic fundamentalist time-bomb in the making?

PAS shrugs off the problem as it supports the madrasahs, now a principal means of propagating its political influence as it seeks to turn Malaysia into an Islamic theocracy.

Much as the federal government wants to, it is unable to control the madrasahs in Kelantan and Terengganu as they are PAS- affiliated and come under the purview of the state authorities.

Says Juhaidi: "This is not just about Parti Islam and its political influence. It's about fanaticism and the militant tendencies of students who are taught in these madrasahs."

There is little dispute that Pakistan's madrasahs, which also admit scores of radical Muslims from the southern Philippines and Rohingyas from Myanmar's Arakan region, promote Islamic militancy.

Besides religious lessons, they teach their students how to kidnap, wage war and use firearms and explosives.

It is this, more so than just an increase in the ranks of the unemployed, that gives countries that have to take back madrasah graduates from Pakistan the bigger headache.

The Philippine government tackles the problem by letting American troops into Mindanao to support its military operations against the Abu Sayyaf rebels, who have links with Osama's al- Qaeda outfit.

Myanmar's secretive military junta, in contrast, keeps the problem of the Rohingya Muslims under wraps.

Whether the generals admit it or not, the Rohingyas they have disowned pose a grave security threat to Myanmar's predominantly Buddhist government.

There is yet another factor that aggravates the region's security problems -- the sleeper agents whom Osama deploys in his terrorist war against the U.S.

Against this backdrop, Indonesia's reluctance to act against militants such as Abu Bakar Bashir, an Osama supporter, leaves a gaping hole in regional security.

Osama's modus operandi is to work through intermediaries. He uses local people who can give him logistical support, shelter and contacts when he launches an operation. Which is why he tries to recruit people locally in different countries.

According to Raman, al-Qaeda -- an exclusively Arab and Saudi- centric organization of some 600 members -- has contacts in South-east Asia.

It operates directly, if not through the International Islamic Front, which links pan-Islamic organizations from six countries.

Pakistan's Harkat-ul-Mujahideen has active links with radical Islamic elements in Southeast Asia through the Abu Sayyaf group.

But this pervasive secret network is hard to detect even when ASEAN countries exchange intelligence. Another security expert, Dr Rohan Gunaratna of the University of St Andrews in Scotland, notes that although al-Qaeda's network in the U.S., Europe and East Africa has been broken, its cells and support structures in Asia are largely intact.

In Malaysia, al-Qaeda is believed to have political ties with PAS and military links with Kumpulan Mujahideen Malaysia.

Al-Qaeda has also tried to develop relations with several Indonesian Islamic radical groups, including Laskar Jihad.

Similarly, Osama does not see Manila as an enemy of Islam, but as an oppressor of its Muslim nationals and a surrogate of the U.S.

Malaysia is considered as inadequately Islamic, but it has Osama's approval for keeping its distance from the U.S.

Osama's decision whether or not to strike will depend on his assessment of the effectiveness of the security apparatus in Singapore.

He thinks al-Qaeda still has enough funds for at least another two years, even though the bank accounts linked to it have been frozen. This is an unsettling thought.

Can Southeast Asia ever be safe again in such a grim set-up?