Sat, Sep 10, 2011 page7

• TEN YEARS ON: Ten years on, Southeast Asia’s ‘war on terror’ lingers

  • AFP, JAKARTA
  • • 
    • 
    • 

  Indonesia has killed or captured most of the militants responsible for the 2002 Bali bombings, but it now faces new threats from second-generation jihadists inspired by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

  Even before the strikes on New York and Washington on 9/11, Southeast Asian militants were using terror tactics in their own war to create an Islamic caliphate across much of the region.

  Groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), which was founded by Indonesian exiles in Malaysia in the early 1990s, were already blamed for several attacks, including bombings against churches and the Indonesian stock market in 2000.

  However, it was the spectacular “success” of 9/11 and the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan that galvanized them to join the war against what al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden called the “far enemy” — or Westerners.

  The massive suicide bombings of tourist bars and restaurants on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on Oct. 12, 2002, killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.

  However, while jihadists celebrated, the blasts forced Indonesia, the US and Australia to wake up to the terror threat in Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia and the southern Philippines.

  US and Australian advisers -began pouring into Indonesia to help the democratically elected government, still finding its feet after the fall of former Indonesian president Suharto in 1998, to confront JI and its affiliates.

  However, despite a string of successes in the years that followed as top militants were neutralized one by one, Indonesian National Anti-Terror Agency chief Ansyaad Mbai said that if anything, the danger has increased.

  “The problem of terrorism is motivated by radical ideology, so the movement doesn’t automatically end with the capture and death of key figures,” he said.

  The al-Qaeda-linked JI has “metamorphosized” into multiple new threats, he said.

  “These small, autonomous groups aren’t dependent on a top leader, they are only bound by ideology. They can move as small groups or as individuals, determine their own targets and execute plans on their own,” Mbai said. “They have high militancy levels due to their strong belief in the ideology, and they’re very fanatical ... The fact is that these groups are becoming stronger.”

  After the shock of Bali, the first breakthrough came with the arrest in 2003 of key Indonesian JI leader Hambali, an al-Qaeda conduit accused among other things of plotting to blow up US airliners.

  After another attack against Western tourists in Bali in 2005, JI bomb-maker Azahari Husin, a Malaysian, was killed by US-trained Indonesian anti-terror police at a hideout on Java Island.

  By this stage, analysts say, JI was feeling the pressure, and splits began to emerge between those who wanted more indiscriminate killing in the style of al-Qaeda and others who argued too many Muslims were falling victim.

  Another Malaysian, Noordin Mohammed Top, left JI to launch his own operations, including the last major terror attack in Indonesia — the 2009 suicide bombings of luxury hotels in Jakarta that killed seven people.

  Some analysts saw the attack as Noordin’s revenge for the Nov. 9, 2008, execution by firing squad of Bali bombers Amrozi, Mukhlas and Imam Samudra. Two months after the hotel blasts, he was killed in a shootout with police on Java.

  Since then, there have been more successes than failures for Indonesian counterterror forces. A new cell dubbed al-Qaeda in Aceh was discovered on Sumatra Island last year, and its leaders were quickly killed or arrested.

  Police killed another JI leader and Bali mastermind, Dulmatin, last year, while JI’s main ideologue, radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, was jailed for 15 years on terrorism charges in June.

  Pakistani police arrested the last alleged Bali mastermind still at large, Indonesian militant Umar Patek, earlier this year in the same town where former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed by US commandos. Patek is now awaiting trial in Indonesia.

  In the Philippines, where Abu Sayyaf militants killed seven US Marines on Jolo Island only last month, security analyst Rodolfo Mendoza said the battle against Islamic militancy was as hot as ever.

  “We have not realized the victory against the Abu Sayyaf and terrorism ... They have active cells and existing alliances with other groups, like the JI,” he said.
• Most Popular

  • 1

    Taiwan to produce more than 1,200 new missiles

  • 2

    Taiwan firms eye Philippines amid shift to non-China supply chains: CIER

  • 3

    Taiwan wants bilingual, AI-ready graduates — but tests for yesteryear

  • 4

    Marijuana driving rule change planned

  • 5

    ‘Sunflower queen’ deported from US, returns to Taiwan to face charges