The Regional Dimension: Jemaah Islamiyah

Background

JI is an active jihadist terrorist group with purported historic links to al-Qaeda. The group currently enjoys a concerted presence in Indonesia and, to a lesser extent, the Philippines and is known to have had established cells in Malaysia and Singapore. It has also tried to entrench an operational and logistical foothold in both southern Thailand and Cambodia. The United States designated JI a foreign terrorist organization in October 2002, shortly after the first Bali attacks (discussed later). The group was subsequently added to the United Nations’ (UN’s) list of proscribed entities, a move that requires all member states to freeze its assets, deny it access to funding, and prevent its cadres from entering or traveling through their territories (Manyin et al., 2004, p. 5).¹

The Evolving Terrorist Threat to Southeast Asia: A Net Assessment: Introduction

Terrorism is not new to Southeast Asia. Indeed, for much of the Cold War, the activities of a variety of domestic ethnonationalist and religious militant groups posed what was arguably one of the most signifcant challenges to the internal stability of several countries across the region. Tese violent organizations arose in reaction to the unwillingness of many Southeast Asian governments to acknowledge or recognize the right of minority self-determination. Such reticence essentially owed itself to an implicit fear that acceding to even limited ethnonationalist demands would result in an unstoppable secessionist tide, challenging the very basis of statehood that underscored Southeast Asian post-colonial identity (Acharya, 1993, p. 19; see also Christie, 1996; Jeshurun, 1985; Joo-Jock and Vani, 1984; D. Brown, 1994; Findlay, 1996; and Nathan, 1997).

The Evolving Terrorist Threat to Southeast Asia: A Net Assessment: Summary

The Current Terrorist Threat

Overall, the terrorist threat to the countries covered in this monograph remains a serious but largely manageable security problem. In Tailand, while the scale and scope of Islamist-inspired violence in the three southern Malay provinces of Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat have become more acute since 2004, the confict has (thus far) not spread to the country’s majority non-Muslim population nor has it taken on an anti-Western dimension.¹ Indeed, at the time of this writing, outside demagogues and radicals had singularly failed to gain any concerted logistical or ideological foothold in the region, which suggests that Tailand’s so-called “deep south” is unlikely to become a new hub for furthering the transregional designs of fundamentalist jihadi elements.

The Evolving Terrorist Threat to Southeast Asia: A Net Assessment

Peter Chalk, Angel Rabasa, William Rosenau, Leanne Piggott
RAND Corporation 2009

Contents

Preface

Summary

1. Introduction
2. Malay Muslim extremism in Southern Tailand
3. Muslim and Communist extremism in the Philippines
4. Terrorism and National Security in Indonesia
5. The regional Dimension: Jemaah Islamiyah
6. Counterterrorism and National Security in Tailand
7. Counterterrorism and National Security in the Philippines
8. Counterterrorism and National Security in Indonesia
9. National Security in Southeast Asia: The U.S. Dimension
10. Conlusion