terrorism-in-asia

"Terrorism in Bangladesh is a relatively new but internationally linked phenomenon, especially when compared to its presence in other South Asian states."

"While the bomb blasts and the suicide bombings point towards a supportive role being played by external extremist groups, terrorism in Bangladesh is essentially a home-grown war militants are waging against their own people."

"The most important characteristic of contemporary terrorism in Bangladesh is the terrorists' ability to sustain and regenerate by adapting the security environment by using the loopholes in the criminal justice system."

"The arrival of a large al-Qaeda group in the capital Dhaka raises pressing concerns that Bangladesh may have become a dangerous new front in America s war on terror. Indeed, one Bangladeshi newspaper last month even quoted an unamed foreign embassy in Dhaka as saying Osama bin Laden's No. 2, Egjqjtian Ayman al-Zawahiri, had been hiding out in the country for months after arriving in Chittagong. Today, southern Bangladesh has become a haven for hundreds of jihadis on the lam. They find natural allies in Muslim guerrillas from India hiding out across the border."

"On the ground, in the investigations that we have carried out, we did not get any evidence of ISIS links as yet. I do not think, any terrorist or groups would ever gain permanent or semi-permanent ground in Bangladesh"

"The Malaysian government maintains that its strict laws and police activity undermined the previously existing networks of terrorism in Malaysia and continue to prove to be an effective deterrent to extremism."

"In the context of terrorism in Malaysia, the government has used various strategies to curb terrorism in the country, in terms of law enforcement and amendments and de-radicalization processes."

"In Malaysia, we have been very successful in our own fight against terrorism. The Communist insurgents whom we defeated practised widespread terrorism. We defeated them, and eradicated terrorism from our country not only by military means, but also by addressing the root causes of the terrorism that plagued Malaysia. Terrorism can never be justified, under any circumstances. However, if we are to prevent it, we must not only hunt down all the terrorists but also remove the root causes that make some people angry and bitter enough to commit or support acts of terror. By addressing the grievances of our Chinese community, from which most of the terrorists sprang, we were able to put an end to terrorism in Malaysia. Recently, Malaysia has had to deal with another source of terrorism; extremist Muslim groups who claim that our government is not Islamic and want to replace it with a Taliban-style state spanning Malaysia, Indonesia and the southern Philippines. They are opposed by the overwhelming majority of Malaysians, including Muslim Malaysians, who want to preserve our democratic, multi-religious, multi-ethnic and multi- cultural society and the spirit of religious and ethnic tolerance that underlies it. Malaysians want to preserve our commitment to modernisation, development, and openness to the outside world, which have played such an important role in our unprecedented economic growth and prosperity over the past two decades. We studied the causes for extremism among Muslims and their resort to terror but found that they were mislead by the situation in other Islamic countries and their wrong perceptions of Islam. We have taken measures to ensure the spread of the true teachings of Islam as espoused by the majority of Malaysian Muslims. Fundamental Islam proscribes suicides and the killing of innocent people and Muslims should not resort to indiscriminate violence, but should seek peace instead. As to the situations in other Muslim countries, in Palestine for example we will try to alleviate them, to help overcome their problems. Accordingly we have been able to act against the would be terrorists in accordance with our laws with the full support of our people. We are firm when dealing with terrorists whether they be Chinese, Indians or Malays, Muslims or non- Muslims. If anyone plots terror in Malaysia he will be arrested under the laws of the country. As one of your newsmagazines recently wrote, Kuala Lumpur is a modern and attractive city, an outstanding place to do business, but also to rest and relax. But this is not so for terrorists. We do not tolerate their presence. We give them no rest, no quarter, and no place to hide. We have adequate laws and capacity to deal with such threats. And we have had much experience in this field."

"Our problem now is one of dealing with terrorists, and these are people who are ‘invisible’ to us because they are not in any recognisable uniform. We do not know who the terrorists are. Our preparations are focused on information, intelligence. We must be able to identify, at an early stage, who a terrorist could be because he (or she) will be undergoing training or has close ties with terrorist groups,"

"As Sidney Jones has argued, “The threat of terrorism [in Indonesia] is real, yet only a few Muslims are radicals, and even fewer advocate violence.”"

"Put simply, eradicating terrorism in Indonesia is not as straightforward as it is in many other jurisdictions. Anti-terrorism policies must recognise the peculiar Indonesian context and background."

"The details of the massacre of somewhere between 250,000 and 600,000 Indonesians in 1965 are only now beginning to emerge. After a failed coup d’état in 1965, the Indonesian army (with at least tacit approval from the United States) took its revenge on the Communists. The army encouraged nationalist and Muslim youth to settle old scores; gangs of Muslim youths massacred Chinese peasants in the most horrific manner. “ ‘No-one went out after 6 pm, recalls a Chinese whose family fled East Java. ‘They cut off women’s breasts; they threw so many bodies in the sea that people were afraid to eat fish. My brother still had to serve in the shop. In the morning young Muslims would come in swaggering, with necklaces of human ears’ ” (Guardian Weekly [23 September 1990]). In Indonesia’s 1975 invasion of East Timor, at least two hundred thousand civilians were killed."

"It will be worth mentioning that Pakistan is also making its contribution to the spread of terrorism in Thailand ."

"One can even say that there is nothing new at all about transnational terrorism in Thailand since both Thai terrorist and separatist organisations have had contacts with the Middle East and South Asia for decades...."

"Acts of terrorism in Thailand are limited predominantly to the four southern border provinces of Narathiwat, Yala, Pattani and Songkhla."

"Terrorism in the Philippines is certainly nothing new. For years the NPA, the New People's Army, the armed wing of the National Democratic Front (NDF), terrorized the country, especially during the 1980s."

"The longstanding communist insurgency and terrorism in the Philippines are the reasons why the government cannot fully control and develop large parts of the country."

"There are no ready answers to the issues of do- mestic terrorism in the Philippines . There is no ade- quate military solution , nor is it a matter of ideology ."