The threat grows in Southeast Asia

---

See the Sol Sanders Archive By Sol Sanders SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

If the Osama Bin Laden who saw the maximum efficacy in attacking the Twin World Trade Towers in New York on 9/11 ø terror plus hitting the American economyÕs jugular ø still lives and plots, he is certainly cogitating on Southeast Asia For the situation there, partly the doing of local terrorists, but building on old problems, is increasingly precarious for U.S. and its allies in the war on terrorism.

There are lots of signs:

In southern Thailand, the old separatism among Moslem Malays in the southern five provinces has blossomed again exploited by terrorists with coordinated attacks against police and military. Buddhist monks in that most traditional and pacifist activity, the morning food begging, have been attacked. The area is now, and has been in the past, perfect for insurgency -- poor, isolated, with a disaffected local Moslem majority antagonistic to faraway Bangkok. Just as this mountainous Malaysian-Thailand area became a sanctuary for the remnants of MalayaÕs post-World War II Communist insurgency for two decades, it could again serve as a redoubt for terrorists.

In Moslem areas of the southernPhilippines, a combination of all these elements plus corruption, are still bedeviling any Manila effort to get its Moslem insurgency under control. Old smuggling and illegal immigration ties bind these areas to Malaysia and Indonesia.Meanwhile, the old Philippines Communist insurgency has waked up and may be an even greater threat to Manila in a new presidential political season because of its proximity to the capitalÕs environs.

In Indonesia, again domestic politics in an upcoming presidential election are tempting the indecisive lackluster President Megawati to avoid any confrontation with powerful Moslem sentiment which shades off into fundamentalism ø and terror. The government did move on the perpetrators of the October 2002 Bali massacre. But there has been a failure to find a political solution to the 40-year-old separatist revolt among the religious Acehnese in northern Sumatra [a source of some of the piracy, apparently].

Past collaboration among U.S. and Southeast Asian security forces in 2002 prevented a massive coordinated attack on American facilities in Singapore. But the investigation surprisingly showed up a network of loosely linked terrorist cells operating throughout the region. Their ability to coordinate their activities ø perhaps with help from OsamaÕs network ø has already been proved.

What puts all of this into focus now on the international front, however, is the growing pirate activity in the Straits of Malacca, that narrow passage between Singapore-Malaysia and Indonesia through which half of the worldÕs oil cargo passes. Only the Strait of Hormuz, the mouth of the Persian Gulf, is as important a chokepoint in world oil commerce. Lloyd's, the International Maritime Bureau, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and other security agencies have issued warnings. Al Qaida and its local Southeast Asian affiliates could be planning the biggest attack since 9/11 in the Straits.

There is plenty of evidence that something is up: Attacks on ships there ø including successful kidnapping of a supertanker crew for ransom last year ø already represent half the piracy recorded around the world. U.S. forces found films in Al Qaida sanctuaries in Afghanistan monitoring Malaysian police patrol boats. Some tugboats in the area have gone missing. One group of pirates tried navigating a chemical cargo for a few hours when they got control of it before giving it up for the loot on board.

There are some ten supertankers passing through the passage daily. Some of the cargoes are liquefied LNG, no better ÒfuelÓ if terrorists wanted to use it to make a suicide run against Singapore or Indonesian cities. Insurance companies are now demanding Ôwar riskÓ for some of IndonesiaÕs ports, since a good deal of the piracy actually takes place there. Merely sinking one of the supertankers in the narrower channels of the Strait might block passage.

There have been efforts to get control of the problem. But a 1992 setting up joint patrols among Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia has tapered off to very little. Japan, in one of its first offers of international security cooperation, has been conducting bilateral anti-piracy exercises in the area with India, Singapore and the Philippines. Elements of the U.S. Seventh Fleet have been active, in part participating in the search for weapons of mass destruction moving on clandestine vessels.

A successful Strait sabotage operation would be catastrophic, not only in terms of loss of life and property destruction. The oil passing through the Strait is the lifeline for the whole East Asian economy. China is now the worldÕs second largest oil importer, almost all of it coming through the Strait. The Japanese economy is almost totally dependent on Mideast Oil moving on this route. Ditto for South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand. The effect on the world economy, struggling to get back on a growth pattern, can hardly be exaggerated.