Militant Islam in Southeast Asia: Crucible of Terror (review)

Book Reviews Militant Islam in Southeast Asia: Crucible of Terror. By Zachary Abuza. Boulder, Colorado, USA & London: Lynne Rienner, 2002. 279pp. The terrorist attacks on the Indonesian island resort of Bali on 12 October 2002 confirmed that Southeast Asia had become an important front in the war on terror. While Al-Qaeda absorbed the attention and energies of American and Western security and intelligence agencies globally in the wake of the horrifying terrorist attacks on September 11 2001, for many analysts Bali heralded the lethal emergence of militant Islam in Southeast Asia, as exemplified by Jemaah Islamiyah. Since the Bali attacks, a number of articles and books have been published examining the nature and extent of the militant Islamic threat in the region, and Zachary Abuza's Militant Islam in Southeast Asia falls within this category. Abuza actually started out studying Vietnamese politics, and in fact has a previous book on the subject, entitled Renovating Politics in Contemporary Vietnam (Lynne Rienner, 2001). Nevertheless, driven evidently by a burning desire to come to grips with the question of how militancy could emerge amongst regional Islamic communities well known for their tolerance and openness, Abuza has extensively researched the issue to produce Militant Islam. Abuza unpacks his argument in a well-structured, systematic fashion. In the first chapter he summarizes the origins and structure of Al-Qaeda and shows how the network was able to exploit regional governance weaknesses and penetrate Southeast Asia ideologically, logistically and financially. The next chapter then makes the very important point that even before Al-Qaeda arrived, Southeast Asian 175 176Book Reviews countries "each had vast socioeconomic disparities, historical animosities, lingering insurgencies, bouts of sectarian conflict, and political disenfranchisement". Hence Al-Qaeda "did not simply arrive in the region and establish a network from scratch". Rather, existing indigenous grievances were exploited. Abuza puts it pithily when he argues that the "historical roots of militant Islam are not new in the region, but their links to international terrorist groups are" (p. 81). Chapter Three traces in helpful detail how Al-Qaeda established an enduring presence in the Philippines. Indeed, Abuza's view is that the Abu Sayyaf and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) are less dangerous than "the continued presence of independent cells of AlQaeda operatives networking with counterparts throughout the region" (p. 114). Abuza even castigates Washington's apparent obsession with wiping out the Abu Sayyaf while apparently ignoring the greater threat emanating from Al-Qaeda's continued penetration of the Philippines. The following chapter then provides the reader with a detailed survey of the origins, evolution and development of Jemaah Islamiyah (Al-Qaeda's regional arm according to Abuza) across the region, especially in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines. Abuza shows how JI evolved, under Al-Qaeda tutelage, into a terrorist network espousing a similar virulent anti-American, anti-Western global jihad mindset, and traces the events culminating in the Bali attacks of October 2002. The chapter is also interesting for the light it sheds on the ideological motivations of JI militants such as Imam Samudra, recently sentenced to death for his role in the Bali bombing, as well as the analysis of the role of the little-known Rabitatul Mujahidin (League of Mujahidin) in acting as a "focal point for co-ordinating activities between Al-Qaeda, JI/MMI, and Al-Qaeda cells in Myanmar, Aceh, and Thailand" (p. 176). Abuza next turns to an evaluation of the effectiveness of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) governments in combating the militant Islamic threat. He is not encouraged. He concludes that the response of the governments of Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand has been uneven, and that there have been two main problems hindering a more uniform, aggressive thrust: first, "every country in the region has responded to the war on terror in ways that serve their immediate political objectives" (p. 224). Second and more fundamentally, Muslims in Southeast Asia, especially since the Iraq war, "in general, believe that the war on terror is patently anti-Muslim" (p. 190). In his sixth and final chapter, Abuza stresses six key points: first, despite a great deal of success in disrupting Al-Qaeda, the network...