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| Southeast Asia |
| JI expanding Singapore network |
| 2005-03-29 |
| Remnants of al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah militants are regrouping and expanding with the help of regional allies despite a crackdown by Southeast Asian authorities, Singapore's government said on Tuesday. If unchecked, the collaboration could fuel more attacks like those staged in the past by Jemaah Islamiah, a shadowy network blamed for a series of deadly blasts in the region, including the 2002 bombings on Indonesia's resort island of Bali. "The Jemaah Islamiah or the JI has been knocked down but definitely not knocked out," Singapore's interior minister, Wong Kan Seng, said at the opening of a regional security conference. "Those JI terrorists who seek to mount operations are not using JI members but are leveraging on the support and resources of fraternal groups," he added without identifying specific regional militant groups that could be helping the JI. From Malaysia to Singapore to Indonesia to Philippines, authorities have uncovered an elaborate web of militant networks connected to the Jemaah Islamiah and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda. The Philippines saw three explosions at crowded shopping malls and transport terminals in Manila and two cities in the south on Valentine's Day, an attack claimed by Muslim rebel group Abu Sayyaf, which authorities believe to have received funding from the Jemaah Islamiah. Wong said the bomb attacks in the Philippines last month underscored higher cooperation between different militant groups in staging multiple strikes and the urgent need to tear down training camps in the southern Philippines. "It underlines the urgent need to disrupt and dismantle the training sites in Mindanao which continue to train these jihadist fraternal groups in the region," said Wong, who will take the post of deputy prime minister at the second half of the year. Wong also expressed caution over regional or international groups which could establish links with an Islamic insurgency in southern Thailand. "If this happens, it will have serious ramifications for the entire region," he said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |