In The News

Indonesia Backgrounder: How the Jemaah Islamiyah Terrorist Network Operates

December 11, 2002
How do multinational terrorist organizations maintain communication, plan violent attacks, and find people of similar thinking to grow their ranks? This background report from the International Crisis Group describes how Southeast Asia's fiercest terrorist organization – the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) – motivates, recruits, and carries out violent attacks. The investigators who authored the...

Yemen Protests Seizure of North Korean Ship; Says Scuds Were Bound for Its Army

Thom Shanker December 11, 2002
With the US and other world powers on high alert due to the tension in Iraq, arms shipments into and out of the Middle East are an extremely sensitive topic. As reported today in the New York Times, "Yemen said today that Scud missiles found on a North Korean ship were destined for its army, and issued formal protests over the vessel's seizure to the United States and Spain."...

Police Arrest Key Mcdonald's Bomb Suspect

December 11, 2002
Finding more ties to the terrorist group Jamaah Islamiyah, Indonesian police arrested a key suspect in the bombing of a McDonald's restaurant last week. Although it is still unclear whether the restaurant bombing was tied to the bombing in Bali that killed about 200 people in October, such a link remains a strong possibility, as both the restaurant and the nightclub destroyed in Bali are...

After the Serial Blasts

December 10, 2002
The recent surge of terrorist attacks in Southeast Asia, like in Indonesia and Bangladesh, is putting pressure on politicians and local authorities to crack down on terrorism. Unlike the US, however, poor countries with internal political divisions are having a harder time fighting battles in the war on terrorism. An internal government feud in Bangladesh erupted after a series of bombs exploded...

What a Howler

December 9, 2002
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said recently that he favors preemptive strikes against terrorists in Asian nations, unleashing a flood of criticism from within Australia and without. This commentary in Singapore's Straits Times argues that the notion of preemption must be examined by the international community. The United Nations must be consulted before preemptive strikes occur...

Immigrants Stoke Fears in New Delhi

Nirmal Ghosh December 9, 2002
Porous borders allow useful goods and new ideas to travel the world, but when they're carried by migrants with destructive intent, locals become worried. According to this article in Singapore's Straits Times, Maoist rebels from Nepal are crossing the border into India and causing great concern for Indian authorities. "There is an imminent danger that the Maoist insurgency in...

Dhaka Arrests Activists After Cinema Deaths

Alastair Lawson-Tancred December 9, 2002
At the end of Ramadan, terrorists bombed four Bangladeshi cinemas, killing 17 people. In response to the bombing, government officials have vigourously denied that the terrorist network Al Qaeda is to blame, even arresting several opposition activists as if to prove the point. The Indian government, however, has long claimed that Al Qaeda cells may be operating out of neighboring Bangladesh....