[6th SERIES] AL QAEDA NETWORKS USED MALAYSIA, SINGAPORE, INDONESIA, MANILA, PHILIPPINES

[ARTIKEL] ISLAMIC STATE’S GLOBAL EXPANSION: A RENEWED THREAT TO ASIA?

[6th  SERIES] AL QAEDA NETWORKS USED MALAYSIA, SINGAPORE, INDONESIA, MANILA, PHILIPPINES

BY: ROHAN GUNARATNA

Global Asia Vol. 14, No. 3, September 2019

The Al Qaeda terrorist networks used Malaysia extensively until the Malaysian Special Branch targeted their capabilities starting in 2001. The official Al Qaeda website, alneda.com, was hosted out of a Malaysian server until it was shut down in 2002. Similarly, Singapore’s internal Security Department (ISD) disrupted a major al Qaeda operation to attack diplomatic and other targets in the city-state. With IS creating a presence in its neighborhood, including the declaration of a wilayat in Southeast Asia, the threat to Singapore remains significant.

Working with partners and unilaterally, the Singapore ISD has disrupted attacks both from overseas and from within, including plots to attack Jewish targets. With the rise of IS in Southeast Asia in 2014, threat groups in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines converged in the southern Philippines, the regional training base for Southeast Asian fighters. Similarly, Southeast Asians who travelled to Syria and Iraq formed a battalion and started to collaborate both on and off the battlefield. A Filipino, Mohammad Reza lahaman Kiram, Malaysian Mohamad Rafi Udin and Indonesian Mohammed Karim Yusop Faiz, alias Abu Walid, took part in an IS style beheading in a June 2016 video made by IS in Syria.

In preparation for IS to declare a wilayat or province in the southern Philippines, the IS centric groups unified and pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr Baghdadi. After an IS emissary from Malaysia, Mahmood bin Ahmed, visited the Philippines, the ASG deputy and Basilan island leader isnilon hapilon broke away from ASG. Guided by Mahmood, hapilon created an IS entity in the Sulu archipelago and later co-opted groups in Mindanao and besieged Marawi in May 2017. To declare a Wilayat east Asia, iS central recommended that hapilon control territory. like almost all of his followers, hapilon was killed during the battle for Marawi, which lasted five months. After the Duterte government broke the siege of Marawi in November 2017, IS maintained a presence in nearby lanao Province.

Despite focused operations by the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the post-Marawi Philippines is facing a new phase of threat influenced by foreign fighters, ideologies and funding. Although progress has been made by Manila, the peace dividend is being negated by the growth of IS. Restoring a strategic peace remains a challenge in Mindanao. A spate of suicide operations has characterized the Philippine landscape since 2018. Although the attacks have taken place in the southern part of the country, the threat is moving north.

The first attack was by a Moroccan suicide bomber from Germany who mounted an attack in lamitan in Basilian on July 31, 2018. A second suicide attack was mounted by an Indonesian couple during mass in the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Our lady of Mount Carmel in Jolo, Sulu on Jan. 27. The female suicide bomber detonated the explosive device inside the church, followed by a male suicide bomber at the entrance of the church while security forces gathered after the first explosion.