Asia Security
Monitor
No. 40, July 29, 2003 Elusive Islamist networks funded through overseas workers;
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July 9: The Times of India reports, the terror group Jemaah Islamiah uses a network of overseas Indonesian workers to smuggle money across borders eluding an international clampdown on suspicious transactions. An Indonesian intelligence chief stated, “Their money comes from private donations sent to JI through couriers, such as Indonesian workers who work in foreign countries and then return home. This is incredibly difficult to clamp down on.” Hundreds of thousands of Indonesians work throughout Asia and the Middle East, mainly doing low-paid manual labor. July 25: The rise of separatism in many parts of Indonesia and in neighboring countries has created a fertile ground for extremists and terrorist movements to expand their networks in Southeast Asia, reports Indonesia’s Jakarta Post. Security analysts believe Jemaah Islamiah and other militant groups could use local separatist movements as a way to spread their influence across the region. A recent report issued by the International Crisis Group revealed possible links between senior leaders of JI and the Free Aceh Movement. Agence France-Presse reports, Philippine police mounted a major operation to recapture fugitive Jemaah Islamiah militant Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi. Al-Ghozi escaped last week from a national police prison in Manila where he was serving a 17-year jail term for illegally procuring more than a ton of explosives. Al-Ghozi had confessed that he used some of the explosives to blow up a Manila rail coach in December 2000 in an attack that claimed 22 lives. He also said he planned to use the rest to blow up Western embassies in Singapore. CNN reports that India and China are accusing each other’s troops of making cross-border incursions. The Indian foreign ministry claimed a Chinese patrol crossed the line of control into northeast India last month. China’s foreign ministry denied the charge and in turn accused Indian soldiers of crossing the disputed frontier. Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was visiting China at the time of the incident, in the first trip to that nation by an Indian premier in a decade. In a bid to speed up a final settlement of the row, the nations have recently named envoys to resolve the long-standing border dispute. India says China occupied 38,000 square km (14,700 square miles) of land in the remote Aksai Chin area and is also illegally holding 5,180 square km (3,235 square miles) of northern Kashmir, ceded to it by Pakistan. China claims 90,000 square km (56,250 square miles) in the eastern sector of India’s border region. The Times of India reports that in addition to denying claims that Chinese forces had transgressed into Indian territory, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Kong Quan stated that China did not recognize the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh as a part of India. In response, New Delhi on Friday asserted that the northeastern state is very much an “integral part” of India. July 29: Prime Minister Hun Sen's party won Cambodia's general elections, the Associated Press reports. With vote counting completed, former-Khmer Rouge officer Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP) said it expects to control about 73 of the 123 seats in the new National Assembly. Independent election observers agreed there were several cases of voter intimidation and other irregularities. |
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Copyright
© 2003, American Foreign Policy Council.
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