REUTERS, Sat Jun 19, 2004 11:29 PM ET
New Wars, Old Tactics for SE Asian Militants
By Dan Eaton, Reuters
JAKARTA, June 20 (Reuters) - A bomb is found at the U.S. ambassador's house in
the Indonesian capital, stashed in a flower box on the terrace where he takes
breakfast each morning.
The Philippine ambassador is badly wounded when a bomb explodes outside his
residence in Jakarta. Investigators blame the blast on a regional militant network
targeting the United States and its Asian allies.
Are these thriller plots or the latest news from one of the front lines in the U.S.-led war
on terror?
Neither. They are evidence of the longstanding and still acute vulnerability of diplomats
in Southeast Asia.
The first attack came in 1991 after the first Gulf War. The second in 2000, well before
the September 11 attacks on U.S. cities and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq.
Embassies and envoys have long been targets.
Militants, including the regional al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah network, may be
returning to old tactics with renewed vigour because the bombing of targets such as
hotels and nightclubs is too indiscriminate and costly, terror experts say.
"I think it makes a lot more sense for them. You need less manpower, it's less costly
and probably easier to pull off," said Zachary Abuza, an expert on terrorism at
Simmons College in Boston presently doing research in the southern Philippines.
"It probably shows that their ability to orchestrate large-scale truck bombings now is
hindered given the number of recent arrests. For the people they have now, their first
priority has to be survival and training new cadre."
DIPLOMATS WARNED
Thailand said in April it had received threats against its ambassadors and embassies
in Singapore and Malaysia. In the same month, Japan's mission in Malaysia received
a threat and a demand that Tokyo withdraw troops from Iraq, Japanese media said.
Western countries such as Australia, the United States and Britain have issued
warnings recently about the possibility of fresh attacks in Indonesia, restricting their
diplomats' travel and warning them to vary their routes to work.
"There have been threats against U.S. ambassadors and embassies in Southeast
Asia for about as long as there has been a U.S. presence in the region," said David
Capie, an expert on security at the University of British Columbia in Canada.
"It is possible that these threats are related to the handover of sovereignty in Iraq at
the end of June, but you have to ask whether this is anything new," Capie said.
Indonesian police said last week that regional groups such as Jemaah Islamiah had
shifted tactics to aim attacks at individuals, particularly diplomats, rather than target
nightclubs or hotels where large groups of foreigners gather.
The Wall Street Journal quoted Western security agencies this month as saying
Jemaah Islamiah had sent an assassination squad to Indonesia via the Philippines.
Authorities blame Jemaah Islamiah for a spate of bomb attacks in Indonesia, including
the Bali blasts in 2002 that killed 202 people and an explosion outside Jakarta's J.W.
Marriott hotel last year that killed 12, most of them taxi drivers.
Western security agencies and experts fear Jemaah Islamiah may follow the lead of al
Qaeda in Saudi Arabia where attacks are taking a more surgical approach with the
kidnapping and killing of Westerners, hitting the economy and driving an exodus of
foreign workers.
COPYCAT EFFECT
Security expert Andrew Tan of Singapore's Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies
said that while there were often only tenuous links between many regional militants
and al Qaeda, the threat has been transformed into an ideological one, going beyond
specific individuals and organisations.
"There is the copycat effect and one can expect others to take the cue and think
about a shift in tactics and being more selective," Tan said.
After the September 11 attacks, al Qaeda had moved to softer targets and their
Southeast Asian brethren soon followed suit, he said. The latest shift in Saudi Arabia
and Iraq could elicit a similar response.
"They have always targeted ambassadors and officials and embassies and that sort of
thing, but there might be renewed emphasis now at the expense of other strategies,"
Tan said.
"No more Marriott and Bali type bombings that kill other Muslims, but a more precise
way of targeting Westerners by kidnapping or killing them."
Diplomats in Jakarta refuse to comment on specific threats.
"They're killers. They'll look for opportunities to kill people however they can, and I
really can't go beyond that," said a U.S. official in Jakarta who declined to be
identified.
© Reuters 2004. All rights reserved.
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