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SPEAKING
FREELY
The
battle on terror's second
front
By Yeo Weimeng
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click here
if you are interested in
contributing.
The recent car
bombing in Thailand that killed five people and
wounded more than 44 has once again highlighted
the threat of terrorism in Southeast Asia. Though
much has been written about the dangers posed by
terrorist groups in Southeast Asia, there is
hardly any analysis of the US counter-terrorism
strategy in the region, which has been dubbed by
the George W Bush administration as the "second
front on the war on terror".
Is America
winning the second front on the "war on terror"?
The answer appears to be mixed. It is true that
with American's assistance and support, Southeast
Asian countries have been successful in
eliminating terrorist networks in the region;
nevertheless, American's unilateral actions, such
as the war in Iraq, have alienated Muslim
populations within Southeast Asia, thereby
generating the "political oxygen" that militant
radicals exploit to reinforce their ideology.
Thus, though America is succeeding in the military
dimension of the "war on terror", it appears to be
losing the ideological one. However, before we
continue it would be prudent to know what the
terrorism threat is in Southeast Asia.
The threat
Southeast Asia is no
stranger to the threat of terrorism. For instance,
several countries in the region were vulnerable to
various communist insurgency groups in the 1970s
and 1980s. However, what is new in Southeast Asia
today is the increase in religion-inspired
militant terrorism, particularly from extreme
militant Islamic groups. These groups are linked
with like-minded groups across the Malaya
archipelago. For example, in Southeast Asia, in
contrast to other parts of the world, the
phenomenon of al-Qaeda has been nuanced by the
regional presence of one of its indigenous
branches, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI).
This
radical Islamic organization spans the territories
of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and
the Philippines. Through its Rabitatul Mujahideen
(Mujahideen Coalition) co-coordinating framework,
JI also has operational links between al-Qaeda and
other regional militant groups - the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front (MILF) in the Philippines, Laskar
Jundullah in Indonesia, the Kumpulan Militan
Malaysia (KMM) in Malaysia and the Rohingya
Solidarity Organization (RSO) in Myanmar.
JI-orchestrated bombings and martyrdom operations
have taken place throughout the region, targeting
both American interests and local citizens, as
seen from the bombings in Jakarta and Bali.
US successes
By isolating and
arresting militants as well as closing down
terrorist networks' functional space, countries in
Southeast Asia, with the assistance of the US,
have been relatively successful in removing the
environment in which terrorists groups operate in
the region. The US has cooperated with countries
in the region through various multilateral and
bilateral frameworks.
At the multilateral
level, the US, under the ASEAN-US Joint
Declaration on Combating Terrorism, has worked
together with the 10 Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries in intelligence
sharing, implementing joint counter-terrorism
regimes and enhancing liaison among their
respective law enforcement agencies. Such
initiatives are successful against terrorist
networks as they disrupt these networks from extra
financial and operational assistance.
The
US has also assisted Southeast Asian countries
through multilateral frameworks such as the ASEAN
Regional Forum (ARF). Under the auspices of the
US, several workshops under the ARF framework have
taken place. One example is the Malaysia-US
workshop on financial measures against terrorism
that was held in Honolulu from March 24-26, 2002.
These meetings are important to the US's "war on
terror" as they allow the best practices in the
area to be showcased and expertise tapped as well
as providing a useful platform for valuable
networking.
America has also worked with
Southeast Asian countries outside the ARF and
ASEAN frameworks. One example of such cooperation
is the regional counter-terrorism center in
Malaysia over which the US and Malaysia have been
in liaison. In addition, the US continues to
promote security multilateralism in its various
annual military exercises in Southeast Asia. In
2002, the US Pacific Command organized Team
Challenge 2002, which linked the Philippine
Balikatan exercises with Cobra Gold in Thailand.
On the bilateral level, US assistance has
been instrumental in upgrading the skills of the
Philippine armed forces and equipping them with
better equipment. These efforts are reported to
have significantly weakened the MILF, as well as
the notorious Abu Sayyaf terrorist group. Other
countries in Southeast Asia have also taken part
in US bilateral cooperation. Malaysia, which is
not renowned for its pro-American views, has
engaged in intelligence cooperation with the US
through a bilateral US-Malaysia Anti-Terrorism
Pact signed in May 2002, while Indonesia was
promised a grant of US$47 million to upgrade its
police force, including the establishment of a
special counter-terrorism unit.
Apart from
these official channels, there has also been
crucial informal cooperation between countries in
Southeast Asia and the US. For Washington, an
early dividend from such informal cooperation came
in the form of the arrest of Kuwaiti al-Qaeda
operative Omar al-Faruq, whom the Indonesians
turned over to the US Central Intelligence Agency
in 2002. Another key success was the 2003 arrest
by Thai anti-terrorism forces and the CIA of
Hambali, a top al-Qaeda strategist and key figure
in the 2002 Bali bombing.
US failures
Though the US
counter-terrorism strategy has been effective in
curtailing the functional space in which terrorist
groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah operate, it fails
to counter the radical ideology with which such
group are imbued. This is a strategic mistake, as
a surviving ideology serves to resuscitate a
terrorist group by providing a stream of willing
recruits to replace those who were captured or
eliminated. In other words, to eradicate the
underlying conditions in which terrorist groups
flourish, it is essential not only to remove
terrorism's functional space but it is imperative
that we discredit its ideology as well.
How to counter terrorist
ideology
First, it is essential to remove
local root causes of terrorism. It must be noted
that terrorism is not only a military problem but
a social and economical one. As a result, America
must go beyond military assistance. For example,
the US should spearhead international efforts to
assist poorer Southeast Asian countries in
providing programs aimed in alleviating poverty
and unemployment. Implementing such polices would
no doubt reduce discontent among disgruntled
communities and undercut the appeal of the
terrorist's ideology.
More importantly, it
is essential that the US win over the hearts and
minds of regional Muslim communities. The
worsening of the Israeli-Palestine issue, the US
occupation in Iraq and the Abu Ghraib prison
scandal have increase the "political oxygen" that
fuels anti-Americanism, causing an increase of
recruits to Islamist groups. As a result, for
America to succeed in the "war on terror", it is
essential for the US to identify and remove these
sources of anti-Americanism. Apart from making
sure that the Israeli-Palestine dispute is justly
resolved and ensuring that Iraq, together with
Afghanistan, emerge as modern democratic states,
which by any means is no easy task, Washington
must make certain that its public diplomacy
highlights how American forces are not the "Great
Satan" of the world and have genuinely assisted
Muslims communities across the globe such as in
Afghanistan and Iraq. It is only by confronting
and eliminating such sources of "political oxygen"
that the US can curb the ideological dimension of
such terrorist groups.
Conclusion
The US's "war on
terror" in Southeast Asia has been rather
successful in the short term. The US, with
cooperation from Southeast Asian countries through
bilateral and multilateral frameworks, has curbed
the operational and functional capabilities of
terrorism groups in the region by arresting senior
operatives and disrupting their respective cells
and networks. However, in the long run, US
progress on the "war on terror" has been poor, as
it overemphasizes short-term counter-terrorist
measures at the expense of more important
longer-term counter-terrorism measures such as
winning the hearts and minds of Muslim communities
in the region. As a result, the US fails to tackle
the more important aspects of the "war on terror",
the ideological and political dimensions. If the
US does not develop a multi-prong approach against
this security threat, the "war on terror" will
likely be a long and arduous one.
Yeo Weimeng, a former research
analyst at the International Center for Political
Violence and Terrorism Research at the Institute
of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore,
currently is working toward his master's degree at
the Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service at
Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
(Copyright 2005 Yeo Weimeng)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click here
if you are interested in
contributing. |
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