Exactly one year, one month, and one day after the 9/11 attacks unfolded on American soil, Islamist violence broke out in Southeast Asia. On 12 October 2002, two bombs shattered Bali’s tourist district of Kuta, killing 202 people and injuring another 209. While Indonesia had witnessed separatist insurgencies in far-flung provinces before, the carnage of the first Bali bombings shocked into action the country’s elites previously oblivious to the threat of domestic terrorism with ties to international networks like Al-Qaeda and, later, the Islamic State. Over the next years, episodes of violence attributed to Islamist militants also broke out in Malaysia and the Philippines, with the most recent ones taking place in Lahad Datu and Marawi.
For now, governments throughout maritime Southeast Asia seem to have put a lid on the threat of Islamist violence. Responsible for around a dozen bombings throughout the region, the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an affiliate of Al-Qaeda, has seen its militants captured and tried in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. After protracted engagement over 2017, the Philippine government prevailed over militants affiliated with the Islamic State who had taken over Marawi. However, the threat of Islamist violence in many Southeast Asian countries is rooted in unresolved sub-national conflicts and sustained by outside support from international militant networks, meaning the probability of violence breaking out again remains elevated. While no easy answer exists, we must consider: Are we prepared for the next terror attack?
This question haunts even those in Myanmar, as this week’s first Spotlight article shows. The plights of the Rohingya, whether in Myanmar or outside, have elicited sympathy and outrage from Muslims around the world; vindictive Islamists are baying for blood. For this reason, Aung Zaw, editor-in-chief of Yangon-based Irrawaddy, thinks a terror attack in Myanmar or directed at Myanmar citizens abroad is just a matter of time. Myanmar’s case is beginning to resemble its neighbors’ to the south: a group of Rohingya jihadists seems to be linking up with Islamist militants from abroad. This threat, the writer points out, cannot be decoupled from domestic politics. When this topic is arrayed against topics like the durability of Myanmar democracy or what to do about Myanmar ethno-nationalism, domestic politics will likely prevail.
This week’s second Spotlight article that was first published in the Free Malaysia Today also touches on how domestic politics filters, and skews, the threat of Islamist violence. Misusing the reason of threat to national security, Malaysian politicians pursue a campaign of suppressing Shiism, as if material support and training for the bombers had come from a Shia patron. The author argues this wilfully blind and irresponsible campaign against the ‘Shia threat’ leaves Malaysia exposed to the real danger from the Islamic State. This danger is further exacerbated by the unchecked propagation within the Malay community of the extremist ideology that sustains militant groups like the Islamist State.
Southeast Asian militants will perpetrate the next terror attack in the region, if past experiences are any guide. However, governments in the region are burdened by misguided domestic imperatives. To prepare ourselves to the full extent possible, we must look objectively at our weaknesses and strengths. To do otherwise means tying ourselves up in unnecessary knots.
