South-east Asia fears what Taliban victory will bring

 Posted to Australia's Financial Review (Sep 10, 2021): South-east Asia fears what Taliban victory will bring (By Emma Connors/Southeast Asia correspondent)

National and international policing since the 2002 Bali bombings has come a long way, but hundreds of terrorists are thought to be still active in the region.

Singapore/Jakarta | When the Taliban triumphantly returned to Kabul last month, Indonesia’s counter-terrorism police were arresting extremists in 11 locations across the archipelago nation.

The security blitz was carried out by specialist police unit Detachment 88. Without the November 11, 2001, terror attacks and the atrocities that followed, including the 2002 Bali Bombings, Detachment 88 – funded, equipped and trained by the US and Australia – would most likely never have existed.

Members of the Indonesian police anti-terror unit Special Detachment 88 move into positions as they prepare for a raid. AP

The history of terrorism and the fight against it in the last two decades in south-east Asia is one of global and regional networks. While much attention is focused on the reach of al-Qaeda and Islamic State, on the other side police, military and intelligence organisations have also come together.

This week Australia and Indonesia defence ministers discussed the possibility of Indonesian troops training on Australian soil. The two countries also renewed a memorandum of understanding on counter-terrorism. It’s the latest in a series of agreements that date back to the dark times when Australia realised its alignment with the United States in the war on terror came with a high cost.

On Thursday in Jakarta Foreign Minister Marise Paye said the co-operation formed with Indonesia following “some of the most critical events in our shared history is once again critical” and “we must continue to deepen that co-operation”.

On October 12, 2002, two bombs detonated in the Kuta tourist hotspot on Bali killed 202, including 88 Australians. Then came the Australian embassy attack on September 9, 2004. A year later came the second Bali bombing. It was clear that Australia had to improve its relationship with Indonesia, so that the two nations could jointly take on the extremists.

A bilateral security agreement in the 1990s hadn’t lasted. It was blown apart by Australia’s role in the 1998 East Timor crisis, and a view by many in Jakarta that it was a poor choice for a nation that prizes its non-aligned status.

But, in October 2004, Indonesian diplomat Arif Havas Oegroseno was with foreign minister Hassan Wirajuda and his Australian counterpart Alexander Downer when a different type of security arrangement was discussed.

A few guys with hand grenades and Kalashnikovs – as we saw in [the 2008 terrorist attacks in] Mumbai – can do a tremendous amount of damage.— Donald Greenlees, Australian University’s Strategic & Defence Studies Centre

“In line with Indonesia’s ‘independent and active’ foreign policy, this would not be a military-alliance-style agreement but rather a comprehensive bilateral arrangement that would address modern security threats and issues,” Havas explains.

Havas went on to be Indonesia’s lead negotiator for what would become the Lombok treaty, which sets out co-operation and exchanges in security, defence, combating terrorism, transnational crime, law-enforcement training, emergency response and maritime security. It was signed on November 13, 2006, in Bali.

“I believe this treaty is one of the fundamental aspects of the bilateral relationship,” Havas tells AFR Weekend.

In some ways, the treaty was putting the cart after the horse. It provided a framework for co-operation already under way. The Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement Co-operation (JCLEC), a joint venture of the Australian and Indonesian governments, opened in 2004 in Semarang. It’s since trained tens of thousands of people drawn from Indonesia and many other nations.

In 2002, the Megawati administration was horrified by the Bali bombing and determined to stop the terrorism, recalls David Engel. a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute who served two terms during his diplomatic career at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta.

Family and friends of the victims of the 2002 Bali bombing sit among the rubble of the Sari club during a Hindu cleansing ceremony in November 2002. Kate Geraghty

At the same time, there was “still a lot of lingering resentment and suspicion of Australia that had flowed from East Timor and other things”, Engel recalls.

“It took a bit to persuade them that it was in their interests to do much more with us. In the end, of course, there were all these remarkable developments that led to the cracking of that particular case and that helped put in train the levels of police co-operation that came to fruition with the establishment of JCLEC.

In addition to what it accomplished on the ground, JCLEC came to be “a totem” of a much closer relationship between Indonesia and Australia, Engel says. “It was a manifest symbol that we had reached something beyond where we had been.”

Some degree of suspicion and distrust remains and from time to time there are developments that stoke those sentiments in Jakarta. “But overall JCLEC has been a positive in the relationship while bolstering Indonesian and regional capability in the field of transnational security,” Engel says.

Global indices show deaths from terrorism in Indonesia declined in subsequent years, while global terrorism fatalities increased, notes Donald Greenlees, a visiting fellow at the Australian University’s Strategic & Defence Studies Centre.

“The policing effort domestically and internationally has been very effective in the last 20 years, and we have seen a very sophisticated and effective collaboration between the Indonesian policing and international policing, and the AFP [Australian Federal Police] have been a key part of that.”
Rise of the lone wolf

In addition, the relentless pressure on extremist groups led by Jemaah Islamiah has diminished capacity. “We’ve seen the emergence of the lone-wolf attacker as one of the biggest threats in the last year or so and that reflects a deterioration of their capability to mount the carefully planned, elaborate bombing they have done in the past,” says Greenlees.

“But a few guys with hand grenades and Kalashnikovs – as we saw in [the 2008 terrorist attacks in] Mumbai – can do a tremendous amount of damage.”

Such attacks are not very sophisticated and only require access to weapons, Greenlees notes. These are not difficult to get hold of in South-east Asia where there is a “thriving trade in arms smuggling”, he says.

Indonesia has also exported terrorism. The Philippines, in particular, has been a favoured destination for Islamic State terrorist fighters from Indonesia and elsewhere.

According to the Global Terrorism Index produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace, ISIL and affiliated groups in the Philippines have waged four suicide bombings resulting in 44 deaths since they emerged in 2016. Compared to other active groups, ISIL attacks have been significantly more lethal, causing an average of 3.4 deaths per attack.

A security expert in Manila says authorities estimate there are about 200 active extremists in the country. There is concern the propaganda value of the Taliban victory will inspire some of these to action, or attract new converts to the cause. However, co-operation across nations in the region is tight.

Some say the biggest threat from extremists is a step-up of a lucrative kidnapping trade in the southern Philippines. Some military are also involved, one diplomat tells AFR Weekend.

This is curtly rejected by Nasir Abbas, the former chairman of the Eastern Region of Jemaah Islamiah (JI), who was also a member of a separatist group in the Philippines. “Not true”, he says via WhatsApp when asked by AFR Weekend about collaboration between terrorists, the government and the local military in the kidnappings.

Al Chaidar, a terrorism expert from the University of Indonesia, says extremism still flourishes in the southern Philippines because of the Abu Sayyaf group, which is affiliated with Islamic State. It is difficult to eradicate because the area is hard to reach; it functions like a separate enclave.

“In addition, there are also ideological factors, Wahabi Takfiri is forceful,” he says. Wahabi Takfiri, or Wahhabism, is a rigid view of Islamic reform.

“This ideology surpasses other factors such as economic, political, geographical, and can easily be transmitted through social media.

“Islamic State is still brutal. People who believe in, and support, IS think this is the only way to everlasting life. There is no alternative for them. They won’t’ give that up.”

https://www.afr.com/world/asia/south-east-asia-fears-what-taliban-victory-will-bring-20210908-p58pwa