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