Jemaah Islamiah

Tsunami devastation could breed terrorism: expert

• If you look at the groups in the region of course the most radical group is Jemaah Islamiah and they recruit people through a very small number of religious schools in Indonesia. I don't think their situation will change much. I don't think people will become more religious necessarily as a result of what has happened or be perhaps driven to join that group.

Cambodia resumes trial of Jemaah Islamiah suspects

• The trial of an Egyptian, two Thai Muslims and a Cambodian Muslim charged with links to Jemaah Islamiah, believed to be the Southeast Asian branch of Al Qaeda, resumed on Tuesday in Phnom Penh.

  Egyptian Esam Mohamid Khidr Ali, Thais Chiming Abdul Azi and Muhammadyalludin Mading and Cambodian Sman Esma El, are accused of colluding with Hambali, the suspected mastermind of the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people.

  "I have never met Hambali. I worked for a legitimate organisation to serve the interest of poor people, not to commit crimes," said Ali, director of an Islamic school in Cambodia.

[When are we going to catch on to these islamic "schools" in the United States, and the use by muslims of our own public schools to push islam? How long can we afford to keep our heads in the sand about the tactics and techniques being used by the jihadis?]

Where is the jihad against the tsunamis?

• Al-Qaeda allies [Jemaah Islamiah] have carried out several attacks in Indonesia that killed both Indonesians and foreigners. They set off a blast in September outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta that killed 10 Indonesians. They bombed the Marriott hotel in Jakarta in 2003 killing 12 people. They staged bombings on the island of Bali in 2002 that killed 202 people. During their trial, the men who were accused of attacking the Marriott hotel said the bombing was inspired by Osama Bin Laden. Will Osama inspire anyone to rebuild instead of destroy in Indonesia?
• Imagine if Osama and the sheikhs of jihad encouraged young Muslim men to go and rebuild villages in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Imagine if they encouraged them to do this for the simple reason of helping fellow human beings, not for recruiting future militants. After volunteering to rebuild a village, what kind of young man would return home? What lessons during his volunteer mission would he take home with him? Instead of being eager for more violence, wouldn’t such a young man be eager to help his own people by rebuilding and reconstructing in his own country?

US warns of attacks in Indonesia

• Jemaah Islamiah has been blamed for three terror attacks in Indonesia in the past two years, including the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings in which 202 people were killed, including 88 Australians and seven Americans.

Thailand, Neighbors Squabble Over Ongoing Muslim Violence

• A diplomatic row is simmering in Southeast Asia over allegations that terrorists involved in violence in southern Thailand were being inspired by extremist elements in Indonesia and receiving armed training in the jungles of Malaysia.
  
  The dispute comes towards the end of a year when a decades-old separatist Muslim insurgency in Thailand's southern provinces re-surfaced after years of relative calm, after Muslim extremists torched 21 schools and raided an armory, killing four soldiers and stealing almost 400 rifles.

Southeast Asia and the Brotherhood of Terrorism

• Throughout Asia there are terrorist organizations, insurgencies, and revolutionaries of all kinds. However, what sets terrorist groups operating in Southeast Asia apart is the intimate nature of cooperation among groups. Although insurgent groups in Southeast Asia's terrorist brotherhood do not share the same goals, their cooperation across national boundaries creates an economy of scale for logistics, training, and safe havens.