[东南亚评论]Beyond Bombings: The Islamic State in Southeast Asia（上）

Beyond Bombings: The Islamic State in Southeast Asia

By Zachary Abuza

January 15, 2016

On 14 January, nine militants staged a barricade style attack at a Starbucks in central Jakarta.  Small IEDs were detonated, and the militants engaged security forces for almost two hours. Two civilians, a Canadian and an Indonesian were killed.  Five of the attackers were killed and four were arrested.  Fortunately Indonesian security forces responded quickly and professionally, mitigating what could have been a much more costly attack that appears to have been perpetrated by the Islamic State or Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

The attack in Jakarta should not have surprised anyone; this type of barricade style attack has been seen from Mumbai to Paris. With low technical requisites and a high probability of spreading fear and garnering media attention, it has been the weapon of choice, including in Southeast Asia.

On 30 June 2015, a Malaysian court convicted a man and his son for fighting with ISIL and planning terrorist incidents at home. But it was not a wave of bombings they were plotting, but rather the kidnapping of politicians.  While hostage taking, executions and barricade style attacks garner less concern from security services than bombings, this is potentially an important development at both the tactical and strategic levels for Southeast Asian militants.  If we are to understand the real impact of ISIL on Southeast Asian militancy, it is this.

Hostage taking has become the face of ISIL terror in the Middle East. The grisly executions of orange-jumpsuited victims, mimicking Guantanamo Bay uniforms, have become more and more macabre.  called the recent execution videos “sadism at a clinical level.” These videos are instantly disseminated across a host of social media platforms, and rather than repulse people tend to broaden the group’s appeal as they try to outbid their rivals, equating sadistic violence with religious zeal.

Likewise, there have been a number of “” style hostage taking events perpetrated by ISIL-inspired militants in Europe and beyond, most spectacularly on 13 November 2015 in Paris in coordinated attacks that left 129 dead.  And it is these barricade-style attacks that pose a serious threat in Southeast Asia.  As  explained, “Al Qaeda’s love of elegance was a distraction… But in reality, AQAP carried out only a handful of attacks, and at a languid pace, over the course of many years.”  But these low-tech, low-cost, and high probability of success attacks are tailor made for those who have fought with ISIL, but have little other experience than as front line troops.

The threat posed by ISIL in Southeast Asia is small but present. There are an estimated  supporters of ISIS, including those who have traveled to Iraq and Syria, their family members, those killed in battle and arrested, as well as those returned by Turkish security forces.  It also includes the first wave that has already returned home to Malaysia and Indonesia. The  estimates the number of Southeast Asian combatants to be 600, lower than official regional estimates of 900. Several have returned and plotted or executed attacks, including the  in Malaysia and the first attempted at an Indonesian mall.  Already, more Southeast Asians have joined ISIL and the Al Qaeda-linked Al Nusra Front than ever joined the anti-Soviet mujahideen.  ISIL has  in Southeast Asia.

Yet, despite this concern as well as the previous wave of terrorism by the Al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah, there has been very little use of hostage taking, beheading, or barricade-style attacks as a tactic by Southeast Asian militant groups.  That should be expected to change, with the success of ISIL, the proliferation of their ideology, and return of veterans from Syria over the coming few years.

A Look At Southeast Asian Militant Groups

The Abu Sayyaf

The exception to this is the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) that has routinely engaged in both kidnapping and beheading since the early 1990s. But even with the ASG, hostage taking comes in two forms: kidnapping for ransom to raise funds, and hostage taking with no ransom but the execution/beheading of its captives to try to demonstrate their limited ideological bona fides. As the group has become increasingly desperate, while at the same time influenced by ISIL, it has stepped up its threats of beheading to raise ransoms.

From the 1990s to around 2004, abductions were largely to raise funds. In 2001, they beheaded an . That year, they beheaded nine of 30  in order to force a halt to government offensive. But almost all other hostages were released after a ransom was paid or rescued.

From 2004-07, the ASG had  (JI) and apparently had enough international support that it all but stopped kidnappings. The hostages it did take in that period of time, it executed. In 2007, for example, it beheaded  on a USAID project on Jolo and  on Basilan, without any ransom demands, but rather to demonstrate their Islamist bona fides.  The ASG did decapitate five Philippine Marines in , but that was widely seen as an attempt to get the government to halt its offensive.

But since then, the group has devolved. There has been a steady stream of kidnappings, but ransoms have been paid and people have been released. Recently the ASG has increased the number of foreign hostages, but only because they pay more than local Filipinos, who garner ransoms in the $20-30,000 range.

The ASG routinely target Chinese and Malaysians – and Europeans when they avail themselves because they command higher ransoms. Since 2014, there have been a spate of raids into Malaysia’s Sabah state, including the kidnapping of a ; but the issue is only over how much of a ransom to be paid to secure his release. The usual demand for Malaysians and Chinese is 5 million pesos ($108,000). They had demanded 30 million pesos each for two Malaysians, whom they threatened to behead.  One paid and was released, the other was on 17 November. A former Australian captive reportedly paid  to secure his release.

One ASG leader, , made a YouTube oath of bai’yat to the self-proclaimed Islamic State caliphate.  But this was nothing more than a publicity stunt.  For example, soon after the oath, the ASG threatened to behead one of their two German hostages captured in April 2014 to force Berlin to leave the anti-ISIL coalition. Despite one of the hostages being photographed sitting in his  in front of a ISIL flag, those demands were  with the alleged payment of $1.35 million in ransom, but with no concession by the Germans on ending their participation in the campaign in Syria. ISIL imagery and the threat of a beheading were solely to add a sense of urgency.

While recent kidnappings of locals – including women and children – has increased, all have been released with payment of ransom, most in relatively short periods of time; the ASG is simply “.”  According to my open source dataset, between January 2014 to October 2015, there were 31 kidnappings, and in that time, 34 people were either released or escaped, including two children. The most recent case was of a Philippine mining executive, who was reported to have paid 1.3 million pesos ($27,600) to secure her release.

The ASG currently hold two members of the Philippine Coast Guard whom they have , but only if their ransom demands are not met.  Indeed, on 11 August, a village chief who was abducted along with them was found  after the deadline for his ransom payment had expired.

On 21 September 2015, ASG gunmen staged a logistically complex but well executed raid on a luxury resort in Davao, kidnapping four, including three westerners and a Filipina.  On 13 October, the ASG released a showing the four sitting in front of two ISIL flags in a jungle clearing on YouTube (since taken down).

The video was interesting for a few reasons.  First, it was the first time I recall seeing an ASG video with hostages, or certainly such a well-scripted one. Second, the hostages were on message: articulating what needed to be done to secure their safety and have ransom negotiations commence.  Third, though there was no mention of a beheading, one hostage clearly had a knife held at his throat.

What was most evident is that they have clearly been , which have set a new standard for propaganda and messaging.  The spokesman was very well-spoken and articulate, especially considering how poor and uneducated most run-of-the-mill ASG types are. This really looked as though it was the dress rehearsal for an ISIL-style on camera beheading.

But despite the ISIL imagery and influence, there is no ideological component to these abductions.  A second video, released on 3 November, simply stated the exorbitant demand of  ($21 million) for the release of each of the four.  And it’s also important to understand that their use has much to do with which faction of the disparate ASG is responsible for the abductions. Only one or two cells have adapted ISIL-style propaganda and imagery.

In all, the ASG have beheaded roughly 40 captives since the early-1990s, all in an attempt to prove their jihadist bona fides. But at the end of the day, it is primarily about money.  The reality is that hostage taking is not a Philippine issue. It is really an ethnic Tausig issue, where kidnapping and piracy are culturally rooted.

While the ASG is mainly in it for the money, they remain a low level irritant, but can play a role in the regional spread of ISIL.  In December 2015 Philippine security forces killed a Malaysian member of ISIL – a  and assistant to a top Malaysian ISIL operative – in a clash with the ASG. The constant inability of the Philippine government to secure its territory gives ISIL that important rear area to train.

There have been other kidnappings in the Philippines, but exclusively for ransom payments. The most notable group that did his was the Pentagon Gang in central Mindanao. There has never been consensus on whether Pentagon was simply a kidnap for ransom gang, a group that operated but kicked back funds to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), or themselves members of the MILF.  Regardless, once the peace process took root, the MILF became a responsible stakeholder and the Pentagon Gang all but ceased to operate. The MILF may have abetted or profited from kidnapping, but they officially condemned the practice as “un-Islamic.”

There is a concern that other Moro splinter groups are being motivated or have  to ISIL. The Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Front, which split from the MILF over the peace process, in 2007, has publicly pledged allegiance to ISIL, and routinely engages in sectarian pogroms, such as the Christmas 2014 attack in central Mindanao that left  dead. Likewise, a new group, , issued a recent video of a training camp, in which recruits trained in front of ISIL’s black flags. Again, this is most likely a way for a small and little known group to garner media attention, donations and recruits.

Jemaah Islamiyah

Other militant groups in Southeast Asia have largely eschewed hostage taking. The regional Al Qaeda affiliate, Jemaah Islamiyah, and its myriad of Salafist splinters, eagerly assassinated and bombed, but they never adopted hostage taking as a tactic.

In 2005,  broke off from JI’s leadership that had turned against targeting the far enemy and established “Al Qaeda in the Malay Archipelago.” But even as he started to , his cell never adopted the brutal tactic of hostage taking and beheading as practiced by Al Qaeda in Iraq.

In 2009-10, another JI cell tried to bridge the crippling divide between Top’s pro-Al Qaeda wing and those who advocated renewed sectarian violence, by pushing for low cost/high impact barricade style hostage attacks influenced by the Lashkar e-Taiba’s  in Mumbai, India.  This cell was and more than 125 members were killed or arrested, its leaders , and nothing more came of it.  But it was embraced as a cost-effective, high probability tactic.

Another JI splinter beheaded  in 2006 in order to provoke a new round of sectarian conflict.  The schoolgirls were not taken hostage, nor was this glorified in jihadist media or video-taped.  This group evolved into the Mujihideen Indonesia Timur (MIT), currently the most lethal of all the JI successor organizations, whose leader, Santoso,  in 2014.

On 17 September 2015, MIT beheaded three  in Central Sulawesi.  Again, there was no attempt to ransom the hostages. It was an act meant solely to terrorize; the bodies were the message to the community, not a gruesome propaganda video for the ummah’s consumption. MIT is clearly a group to watch as it is gaining attention in . But for the most part, their attacks are very much directed at security forces or local Hindus.

Southern Thailand Insurgents

In southern Thailand, where some , the Malay insurgents have only taken one hostage, a  whom they executed in April 2013. But there is evidence that this was a very personal and targeted attack. The marine was a Muslim who had been used to leak information to the insurgents that led to a failed attack, in which 16 insurgents were killed; their single most costly attack since 2004. Malay insurgents have never abducted anyone again. In part, the local community saw it as beyond the pale, but many saw the  of the government and feared that such tactics could be counterproductive to the insurgency.

And yet, the insurgents – conservative Sha’afis, but not Salafists – do use beheadings as a tactic to terrorize the Buddhist community.  Since 2004, there have been over 40 beheadings, most recently in April 2014.  But the rate has dropped: there have only been 12 beheadings since 2009 according to my open-source database; and almost all have been decapitated after being killed. Likewise, insurgents frequently desecrate corpses by setting them on fire or mutilating them. For example, insurgents set two couples that they killed in incidents in and  2015 on fire.

But here again, these are done without any media attention and no one has been taken hostage; it is simply gratuitous violence to terrorize the Buddhist community.  Perhaps there is little reason to film or glorify these grisly acts as the insurgents remain so shadowy and unwilling to have a 21st century media campaign.

Moreover, in a series of author interviews conducted in October and November 2014 and February 2015, insurgents revealed that they are under pressure from both their constituents and Islamic clergy to stop the beheadings and desecrations. Militants found such attacks to be very effective in sowing terror amongst the Buddhist population that they seek to drive from the region, but have largely complied with the directive from religious leaders.

And while ISIL has absolutely no role in the insurgency, its propaganda is increasingly being shared amongst Malay youth in southern Thailand and now routinely includes . There is a concern that younger militants frustrated with the pace and scope of the insurgency are showing a willingness to escalate the violence.

来源：the diplomat.com