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37. Asia: Al Qaeda's New Theatre
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Asia: Al Qaeda’s New Theatre 171 By: ROS Size: 7.5" x 10.25" J/No: 03-14474 Fonts: New Baskerville 37. ASIA Al Qaeda’s New Theatre ROHAN GUNARATNA Excerpted from Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (London: C. Hurst & Co. [Publishers] Ltd, 2002), by permission of the author and the publisher. “Bin Laden does not exist at the moment. But he dominates everything. He may have gone off our screens. [...] But he is everywhere. [...] That is his greatest achievement.” (Jason Burke, “Evil’s Advocate”, India Today, New Delhi, January 7, 2002, p. 39.) AL QAEDA’S NETWORK IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION As many as three dozen Middle Eastern, Asian and European terrorist groups trained in the Syrian-controlled Bekaa valley in Lebanon in the 1970s and 1980s. In the early 1990s Afghanistan replaced Lebanon as the major centre of international terrorist training, and by October 2001, forty foreign terrorist groups were operating there. The lack of a far-reaching US policy in Asia led the US to abandon war-ravaged Afghanistan after the mujahidin defeated the Soviet forces. As mentioned previously, instead of working with Pakistan to demobilise Afghan jihad veterans that had won them the Cold War, the US turned its back on Afghanistan and Pakistan in 1989. By 1993 it was even threatening to designate its erstwhile antiSoviet ally, Pakistan, as a sponsor of terrorism , largely because many former mujahidin had been persuaded by Islamabad to fight the Indian security forces in Kashmir. Successive Pakistani governments used the jihadi training and operational infrastructure on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to arm, train and finance up to two dozen Kashmiri groups. Although there is no evidence that the Pakistani intelligence establishment directly supported Al Qaeda, they did help its associate Pakistani and Kashmiri groups for the specific purpose of using them as proxy military forces to undermine Indian control of Kashmir. (It has long been customary for South Asia’s intelligence agencies — including India’s RAW — to support terrorist groups for short-term political gain, often compromising long-term security goals.) 037 AR Ch 37 22/9/03, 12:46 PM 171 172 Rohan Gunaratna By: ROS Size: 7.5" x 10.25" J/No: 03-14474 Fonts: New Baskerville Whenever Al Qaeda interacted with a terrorist group or a government, its potent Islamist ideology and the irresistible financial rewards it offered saw them either become fully absorbed into the wider Al Qaeda network or fall within its sphere of influence. It was a only a matter of time therefore before the Taliban began to succumb to Al Qaeda’s broader strategic plan. Within a year of Osama arriving in Afghanistan in May 1996, they too had turned against the West and the government in Kabul was offering a safe haven for terrorists . It was a nexus that would have tragic consequences for the people of Afghanistan. The Asian counterparts of Al Qaeda were not as highly motivated, well trained or well led in the early stages as their Arab allies, but with indoctrination, training and leadership they have improved. At the time of writing, Asian members of Al Qaeda account for one fifth of the organisation’s strength. Their leaders are handpicked, mostly educated in the Middle East, speak Arabic, unlike the vast majority of Asian Muslims, and were already of a radical bent. Al Qaeda’s Asian core is handpicked from several hundred jihadi volunteers who fought in Afghanistan, including, inter alia, Central Asian, Chinese, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Indonesians, Malaysians, Singaporeans and Filipinos. Since the early 1990s, a few thousand Muslims from Central Asia, China and South and South East Asia either trained in Afghanistan or received incountry training in Al Qaeda or Al Qaedaassociate camps. The latter were mostly in the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, and some of those trained in them later travelled to Afghanistan for advanced instruction . On their return home they did not immediately initiate violent political campaigns; instead Al Qaeda retained them as a strategic reserve for future deployment, even establishing a database of their biographical data for the purpose. 037 AR Ch 37 22/9/03, 12:46 PM 172 ...