Southeast Asian Countries Request Israel’s Aid In Countering Terrorism

Southeast Asian Countries Request Israel’s Aid In Countering Terrorism

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Arie egozi

South Asian countries have approached companies in Israel to evaluate their capabilities in reinforcing these countries tools to counter the growing threat of Islamic terror.

Sources in south-east Asia told I-hls that the countries they were reluctant to name are looking for a “great range” of technologies to answer immediate problems

A source in the Israeli ministry of defense confirmed that these contacts have been accelerated in recent months.

According to a report in CNBC, Southeast Asia faces growing risks from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) given its large Muslim population, but strategists see several reasons why the region won’t become a hotbed for terrorism.

For one, Southeast Asia lacks the military and logistical connections that Europe enjoys with the Middle East as a result of geographical proximity, said Justin Hastings, senior lecturer at the University of Sydney.

Like other parts of the world, terror groups in the region are mostly supporters of Al Qaeda or ISIS sympathizers. The most worrisome networks are in Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia—home to the world’s largest Muslim population. Within these three countries, more than 30 active groups have pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, said Rohan Gunaratna, professor of security studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technology University.

While these local groups have inflicted damage, their reach remains limited. Malaysia, for the time being, shows no signs of the conflict expanding to a broader national level, with the objective continuing to be defined in uniquely local terms. In the Philippines, the Abu Sayyaf terror organization currently has no broadly accepted emir to provide organizational or operational direction, with the bulk of its existing cadres confined mostly to isolated pockets.

In Indonesia, the latent threat posed by Islamist radicalism has definitely declined since 2000, but an undercurrent of support for the institution of strict Islamic order remains, and under the right circumstances could spark a resurgence of fundamentalism across the country.

Such an assessment, like the one Israel is being asked to perform, of the current terrorism environment in Southeast Asia necessarily has to take into account the nature and appropriateness of state responses and all possible future scenarios.