SOUTHEAST ASIA ON ALERT FOR ISIS ‘GRAND AGENDA’ AS ESCAPED INDONESIAN JIHADISTS IN SYRIA EYE THE REGION
• The
terror network is shifting its focus to fake news as a cheap and easy method of
undermining trust in the region’s secular governments as a way to destroy them
• The
potential return to Southeast Asia of 50 hardcore Indonesian militants and
their families is expected to revive the movement, and experts warn the threat
is ‘real and now’
Southeast Asian nations are on high alert
for about 50 Indonesia Islamic State
fighters and their family members who could be tasked with carrying out the
terror network’s “grand agenda” of destroying the region’s secular governments
following their escape from Syrian prisons.
Terrorism experts say Isis has been turning
its attention to weaponising fake news, which it sees as an easy and cost-free
way to help undermine and delegitimise authorities in the region. “The threat
is real and it is coming now,” said Noor Huda Ismail, visiting fellow at
Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. “Isis has no plan but to destroy
the secular system in the whole of Southeast Asia.
Malaysia, Indonesia fear return of fighters
jailed in Syria
“To produce fake news is super cheap but
the impact is powerful because people will get confused. Governments will not
work effectively if they suffer from a lack of trust among the people,” Huda
said. A former member of Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda’s Southeast Asian arm
said the aim of Isis in the region was to bring the fall of its secular
governments, a strategy it called its “grand agenda”. “It plans to bring
together all the Southeast Asian countries under a caliphate with the southern
Philippines as the capital,” said Sofyan Tsauri.
Tsauri was tasked with logistics and
weapons procurement during his time in al-Qaeda from 2005 until his arrest in
2010. He was released in 2015 and has since left the group. Last Monday a
senior Indonesian counterterrorism source said about 50 Isis fighters and their
families had escaped from prisons and holding camps in northern Syria. As of
Friday, their whereabouts were unknown, he said.
Indonesia on alert as fighters escape Syria
to awaken sleeper terror cells
Their jailbreak was prompted by an invasion
from the north by neighbouring Turkey after the United States abruptly withdrew
its troops from the country last week. Some 400 Kurdish rebels in the area, who
had been guarding the prisoners and their tens of thousands of family members
with the support of the Americans, have been severely strained by Turkish
attacks, offering many suspected Isis members a chance to escape. Of about
12,000 Isis militants held in Syrian jails, about 2,000 come from foreign
countries including Indonesia and Malaysia. The rest are mostly from Syria as
well as Iraq.
Beeline for Mindanao
The southern Philippine island of Mindanao
has so far been the biggest focus of Isis activity in Southeast Asia, as the
only place in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) where the
group has successfully seized control of a city – Marawi – which it held for
five months before the government took back control in October 2017.
Sumber: Scmp.com - 19 OKT 2019
FOLLOW US 👇
https://al-haqcentre.blogspot.com
https://twitter.com/alhaqcentre
https://instagram.com/alhaqcentre
"TOGETHER AGAINST EXTREMISM!"
Comments
Post a Comment