A decade later. Asia’s ‘war on terror’ still rages focus 09/03/2011

A decade later. Asia’s ‘war on terror’ still rages

focus

09/03/2011
JAKARTA — Indonesia has killed or captured most of the militants responsible for the 2002 Bali bombings, but it now faces new threats from second-generation jihadists inspired by the 9/11 attacks.

Even before the strikes on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, Southeast Asian militants were using the tactics of terror in their own war to create an Islamic caliphate across much of the region.

Groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah, which was founded by Indonesian exiles in Malaysia in the early 1990s, were already blamed for several attacks including bombings against churches and the Indonesian stock market in 2000.

But it was the spectacular “success” of 9/11 and the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan that galvanised them to join the war against what al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden called the “far enemy” — or Westerners..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110903com3.html