Experts Urge Southeast Asian Leaders to Gauge Threat from Regional, Returning IS Supporters

Voice of America

25 November 2016

Hundreds of fighters from Southeast Asia have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State (IS) militant group, and security analysts say they are tracking growing links between the terrorist organization and regional militant groups.

Researchers say they do not want to overstate the threat posed by these links, but that it warrants increased attention.

… Joseph Chinyong Liow, a professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, in a recent Brookings Institute report, said the violence in the Philippines is a reminder of the persistent threat terrorism poses to Southeast Asian societies.

In 2014, IS militants formed the Katibah Nusantara, a Southeast Asian wing composed mainly of fighters from Malaysia and Indonesia. Despite the group’s increased attention on Southeast Asia, Liow said governments in the region have toughened security and contained the terror threat. But he said that does not mean the danger has passed.

“In this respect, the greater threat may will be that idea and phenomenon of ISIS would provide greater inspiration for local jihadists to continue waging what are essentially localized struggles,” he said.

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