The Singapore based Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies held the “International Conference on Terrorism in Southeast Asia: The Threat and Response” last week and herein you will find some of the highlights as they relate to Indonesia.

Dr. Rohan Gunaratna, the Head of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) at the Institute discussed the changing nature of the terrorist threats facing the region, highlighting the presence of Al Qaeda and other jihadi groups.

He said that the terror network in south-east Asia is quite robust, buttressed by outside groups such as Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and strengthened by links with other regional networks.

This “networked terrorism”, he claims, is exacerbated by global events like the Iraq war and occupation which are exploited by local groups to foment unrest. He said that military means alone would not help in eliminating terrorism and comprehensive strategic counter terrorism would have to include an ideological, financial, legislative, media, educational, informatics and developmental response.

He strongly advised that “spiritual” leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah, JI, Abu Bakar Bashir, not be released from prison in June.

Everything must be done to make sure that he is not released.

he was quoted by Reuters as saying (hat tip to Kerry Collison).

He also recommended that JI be banned.

JI has gained very significant strength because it is now working with so many other groups in Indonesia. The Indonesian government must be encouraged to ban JI. JI is still a legal organisation in Indonesia. JI must be criminalised.

He’s wrong on both counts I would say. JI is much weaker now than for a long time. Banning it, perhaps someone could tell me what this would achieve? The members of JI are already being hunted down, many of them have already been arrested, what would formal banning achieve?

In any case he went on to say that JI has a few thousand members in south-east Asia and has training camps in Indonesia and the southern Philippines, which combine to produce 400 to 500 potential terrorists every year.

He also made mention of funding issues, saying that a small amount of the millions of dollars held by private religious funds and relief groups for development projects in poor Muslim communities in the region were diverted to “hatred and violence”.

There are also considerable amounts of money still coming from the Middle East to fund terrorist attacks in Southeast Asia.

Tags: Terrorism