Attack Against U.S. Widens Fears in Southeast Asia
International Herald Tribune
September 14, 2001
Michael Richardson 

The devastating attack in the United States has intensified concerns about the spread of Muslim extremist groups with international connections in Southeast Asia.

Western and Southeast Asian officials say they have evidence of increasing connections among Muslim extremist groups in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, and between them and international terror organizations.

Officials and analysts note that growing economic hardship and unemployment in the region, political instability and chronic sectarian and separatist conflict are fueling Islamic extremism in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

As a result, Southeast Asia has become "a potentially fertile recruiting ground" for radical Muslim organizations, said Daljit Singh, a senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.

"They are taking advantage of instability to spread the Islamic cause and try to push out America," he said. "The single most important issue that fuels religious extremism in the region is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the feeling that the international community, especially the U.S., should do more to resolve it."

Although Indonesia is a secular state, it has the world's largest Muslim population, some of whom oppose the country's close ties to the United States and demand Islamic rule for their country.

Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda of Indonesia said Wednesday that Indonesian authorities had thwarted two planned attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, but did not give other details.

Security was recently tightened after Washington received what it said was a credible threat against U.S. interests and citizens in Indonesia.

U.S. officials say that those who carried out the attacks in the United States on Tuesday may have had links to the Saudi militant Osama bin Laden or his Qaida group.

Rohan Gunaratna, a fellow at the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St. Andrew's University in Scotland, said that Qaida had provided money and training to a few Islamic groups in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines and planned to "widen and deepen" its influence in the region.

He said that Qaida was extending its influence in Southeast Asia by using the Internet, infiltrating Muslim nongovernmental organizations, sending extremist religious leaders to the region, and taking activists for training in Afghanistan, where Mr. bin Laden is based.

"The chances are very high that in the next three years, we will fight terrorism, specifically international terrorism, that enters Indonesia," the deputy chief of the Indonesian Army, Lieutenant General Kiki Syahnakri, said in a recent interview with The Australian newspaper.

He said that Indonesia wanted to strengthen cooperation with U.S. government agencies to upgrade its anti-terrorist capabilities.

President Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia and Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad of Malaysia agreed at a recent meeting in Kuala Lumpur that their security agencies should cooperate closely to counter Muslim extremist groups in the region.

Shortly after they met, Muslim separatist rebels in the Indonesian province of Aceh threatened to disrupt traffic in one of the world's busiest sea lanes, the Malacca Straits, unless ships sought permission to pass.

The Indonesian police say that a small group of Malaysian Muslim militants were behind a number of bombings in Jakarta, including at two Christian churches in July, that wounded an estimated 70 people.

Last month, the police in Malaysia arrested 10 men who they said were members of an Afghan-trained militant group, Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia, that hopes to turn the country, which has a majority of Muslims among its population, into a "pure" Islamic society. Like Indonesia, Malaysia is a secular state, although Islam is the official religion.

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