Terror in Jakarta rings alarm bells for Asean

ANALYSIS: Community must cooperate to ward off jihadist threat, write Nopporn Wong-Anan, Nattaya Chetchotiros and Chananthorn Kamjan

The attacks in Jakarta on Thursday are clearly an alarm bell for the Asean Community (AC) to intensify its cooperation in dealing with extremism, a terrorism expert in Singapore says.

Despite an endorsement of the Langkawi Declaration on the Global Movement of Moderates, which includes ways to prevent extremism under moderation, security experts urged Asean countries to implement more practical methods and work more closely in short-term prevention, said Kumar Ramakrishna, head of policy studies in the Office of the Executive Deputy Chairman, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS).

The attacks prove that extremists, and the Islamic State (IS) in particular, have successfully expanded their influence into Southeast Asia through several channels: ideology, existing terrorist groups in the region, returning IS fighters and those who have no previous organisational connection with the IS, Mr Ramakrishna said.

He told the Bangkok Post that the AC has good intelligence exchange both at governmental and non-governmental levels, but these efforts must be intensified.

“What would be particularly useful is if a regional database of known terrorists from Southeast Asia who have had IS connections can be drawn up for use by various Asean intelligence and security agencies,” he said.

To maintain peace and security in the region, Mr Ramakrishna said Asean is required to deal with the threats in two ways covering the real-time, physical threat and the underlying condition that leads to the physical threat. “Enhanced intelligence co-ordination is needed on terrorists’ identities, movement, logistics and funding pipelines between and within governments in the region.”

The bloc should also work closely with key foreign partners on relevant matters in the intelligence community while promoting operational capacity-building in the countries where IS and its networks have established a presence, he said.

“And finally, calibrated use of force and legal instruments are important against militants associated with IS so as to avoid generating a backlash against government heavy-handedness that may radicalise more young people to the Isis cause”, he said.

Aside from close collaboration, Asean members have to improve political and socio-economic governance, with the aim of narrowing gaps and creating well-being among people to prevent IS recruitment.

The terrorism expert also noted that Asean needs to improve its understanding about IS which is a political organisation that seeks to exploit religion for its own purposes. He insisted that IS does not represent Islam, even though it portrays itself as religious.

“Muslims and non-Muslims within Asean and beyond should understand this. Not understanding this may mean tarnishing Islam and this may ultimately affect bloc security,” he said.

Asean members yesterday strongly condemned the attacks and sent their sympathies and condolences to the Indonesian government and people, especially to the families of the victims.

“Asean fully supports the government of Indonesia in bringing the perpetrators of these heinous acts to justice, and remains united and committed to working with the international community to further intensify its cooperation to combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations,” Asean said in its statement. The condemnation echoed previous statements but the group has to focus on preventing future attacks from terrorist groups and maintain regional peace.

Panitan Wattanayagorn, a political science lecturer at Chulalongkorn University, stated that regional intelligence still lacks cooperation on an operational level, in spite of the close ties among the governments.

Mr Panitan, who is also an adviser to Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon, said operationally the authorities in Asean have to increase their communication as the bloc is now a community. “The Jakarta blasts have led to alert and careful works. Thailand will maintain a neutral position as we will not be involved in any conflict,” Mr Panitan said.

Security analyst Sunai Phasuk said local security authorities should admit that Thailand is also vulnerable to terror attacks. “They keep denying it because they are afraid it will affect the tourism industry,” said Mr Sunai.

Mr Sunai said the ruling junta’s proChina policy is a major mistake that may have brought on the deadly Erawan shrine blast last August, an incident the government denied was the work of foreign terrorists.