Reading the Southeast Asia tea leaves, there is evidence the U.S. may not be winning the war against Islamic terrorism in that part of the world.
That's despite relative successful collaboration with local security officials. It has led to capturing a legendary leader, Riudan Isamuddin, known as Hambali, believed to have been Osama Bin Laden's chief operative in the region.
And, to those Bush Administration critics who plead for attention to "fundamental causes", the American military tsunami relief in Aceh was a quintessential good works answer and effective propaganda.
But it is larger political issues in Southern Thailand, Aceh in Indonesia and in the Philippines – targets for further infiltration and sanctuary – which are worrying.
• Southern Thailand is remote. But there are more than the 650 miles between the booming, modern Bangkok and the backward, poverty-stricken, Malay-speaking, predominantly Moslem former seven sultanates Thais annexed only in 1902. They represent only 10 percent of Thailand’s 67 million but are a distinct entity. There has been intermittent resistance to Thai rule. In post-World War II, even remnants of ethnic Chinese guerrillas hung on for a decade in the area notorious for corruption after the British had wound down the Malayan Communist insurgency. A particularly restive period of separatism died out 15 years ago. But violence exploded suddenly about two years ago with an amateurish but coordinated attack on Thai police stations.
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra – who just won a landslide national election – reacted vigorously, for many critics, brutally. There have been more than 500 assassinations and counterterror victims.
Thaksin argued until recently it was not terrorism but simply more banditry. After promising new economic aid, Thaksin now threatens to trim help commensurate to the level of outbreaks. So far there is apparently no evidence locals have strong liaison with outsiders but there is concern the region’s isolation could provide just the kind of sanctuary a regional network needs.
Without offering proof, Thaksin publicly charged guerrillas were training south of the border – ruffling the feathers of Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Badawi has his own problems with the border state of Kelantan where opposition fundamentalist Moslem politicians until recently were on a roll. But on January 26 the Malaysians confirmed Thailand's most-wanted Islamist terror suspect, Abdul Rahman Ahmad, had been arrested. So far Badwi has refused to extradite him [there is no extradition treaty], arguing he is a Malaysian citizen.
• In debris left by the tsunami in Aceh, the raw materials rich northern Sumatra Indonesian province, are questions about what could be developing there. An initial resumption of negotiations in Finland by representatives of Indonesia’s new president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono [SBY] and overseas delegates of the decades-long independence guerrilla movement have recessed. SBY apparently is willing to offer additional autonomy and the Scandinavian-based Acehnese seem inclined to abandon their insistence on total independence.
What is not clear is whether expatriate Acehnese, who generally have eschewed international Islamic terrorists’ appeals despite their Moslem religious orthodoxy, can deliver their followers. Furthermore, there are conflicting reports in Aceh of the reception for aid organizations affiliated with Islamic terrorist organizations which Islamist-sympathizing Indonesian military units brought in the wake of the tsunami. Some reports said they were rejected by the bitterly anti-Javanese Acehnese, but there are reports they struck roots from which political networks will grow as they have in Java and East Indonesia.
• Despite piecemeal operations in the southern Philippines [earlier with U.S. assistance] against local guerrillas, Philippines police in late February said they aborted new planned attacks on an airport, malls, a church and U.S. troops with arrests of three members of an Al Qaida linked group. Illustrating the regional aspects, the police said two were Indonesian and one Malaysian -- all alleged Jemaah Islamiyah members -- arrested with a Filipino of the Abu Sayyaf group. The men allegedly belonged to a previously unknown terror cell. Jemaah Islamiyah is blamed for the Bali bombing in 2002 where 202 people were killed, a series of bomb attacks in Manila that left 22 people dead and more recent bombings in Jakarta. Philippine security officials say Jemaah Islamiyah works with Abu Sayyaf, another small but brutal Al Qaida-linked group, and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a larger group fighting for decades for a separate homeland among the more than 4 million Moslems in the southern Philippines.
These regional aspects of the already discovered Islamicist networks suggest only a well coordinated shared counterintelligence and suppression program among the Southeast Asian governments – with U.S assistance – will succeed against these terrorists. That was one motivation for The Pentagon’s just reinitiating exchanges with the Indonesian army despite bitter criticism from human rights activists, including members of Congress. But to achieve more coordination, present political and organizational differences among the Southeast Asians will have to be overcome. That does not appear in the cards in the near future.
Sol W. Sanders, (solsanders@comcast.net),
is an Asian specialist with more than 25 years in the region, and a former correspondent
for Business Week, U.S. News & World Report and United Press International.
He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
