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Anti-terror strategy has small payoff

Five years after opening a new front in the "war on terror" in Southeast Asia, the US says it is making inroads in disrupting militant groups through partnerships with governments in the region.

But despite the gains, experts warn, the terrorism threat in the region remains grave amid raging violence in southern Thailand and reported plans by top militant Islamist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) for high-profile bombings against Western targets.

The US military said it has forged a strategy of "indirect approach" to help Southeast Asian governments fight the militants -- including training government soldiers, enhancing surveillance capability to flush out potential "safe havens" and promoting economic development.

"We believe certainly that a unilateral approach on the part of the US is not the right answer. We've learned from experience that having large footprints is problematic," said Brigadier General John Toolan, the US Defense Department's principal director for South and Southeast Asia and Pacific security affairs.

"We think that this indirect approach will eventually, over a long-term effort, address some of the root causes of terrorism [and] most importantly help reduce the recruiting of terrorists and insurgents throughout" the region, he said.

In the southern Philippines, Toolan said, local troops being trained by US special forces recently killed the top two leaders of the Abu Sayyaf group and were hot on the trail of two JI bombmakers sheltered by the group.

Washington is also helping to build a maritime surveillance network in Southeast Asia, home to one of the world's most strategic sea lanes, as militants increasingly use the seas as escape routes and to smuggle weapons.

The US just provided US$12 million to Malaysia to help build surveillance capability in the Sulawesi Sea that can be used by other Southeast Asian nations to, for example, track the movement of Abu Sayyaf and JI militants from their Philippine and Indonesian sanctuaries, respectively.

"Things like maritime security are allowing the Indonesians and the Malaysians to work and cooperate with the Philippines to identify potential safe havens for these terrorists and keep the pressure on," Toolan said.

India's navy is also being asked to help the region address the security problem in the Sulu-Sulawesi "terrorist triangle," where the maritime borders of Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia meet.

The US opened a second front in its war on terror in Southeast Asia in 2002 after its invasion of Afghanistan following the September 2001 US attacks masterminded by al-Qaeda kingpin Osama bin Laden.

JI, Southeast Asia's al-Qaeda wing, remains the region's most potent extremist group and is believed to have been behind a number of bombings in Indonesia, including attacks on Bali in 2002 and 2005 in which more than 200 people were killed.

Although last year was the first year since 2002 that JI did not stage a major terror attack in the region, experts warn they remain a deadly force.

Recent raids, arrests and the recovery of explosives in Indonesia's Central Java "make it clear that JI has assiduously been trying to rebuild its capabilities and is preparing for more high-profile bombings against Western targets," said Zachary Abuza, a US terrorism expert who has done extensive studies in Southeast Asia.
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