Osman | ISIS and Islamic Radicalization in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia. A lot of ISIS’s social media propaganda has also been in Indonesian, Bahasa Indonesia in particular, which is similar to the Malay language. Anyone who speaks Malay would also understand Bahasa, while the Bahasa majority—more than 90 percent of Muslims in Southeast Asia—would also know Bahasa. For now, Internet or social media propaganda remains the most significant means of recruitment. Journal: In your opinion, what should be done to thwart terrorist organizations’ online influence? Osman: I think there’s a need for more grassroots-level activities that bring young Muslims together and acquire their ideas on counter-strategies. I did something together with some friends last year. We formed a network called the Young Southeast Asian Muslim Forum in which we brought together young Muslims from seven countries around the region and conducted workshops. We didn’t call it a “counter-radicalization” workshop, but instead called it a workshop on “positive portrayal of Islam” because, obviously, much of the negative portrayal is related to terrorism. We need more of this type of small-scale work and to think about more operating at the grassroots level. Journal: Do you think that the recruitment efforts you mentioned have focused on recruiting soldiers for the conflict in Syria and Iraq, or on propagating terrorist attacks in Southeast Asian territories? Osman: When we look at people who have gone to join some of these groups, we hear reports of how they have never been trained to fight. They are actually more of a hassle for ISIS and other groups. So, firstly, I think that ISIS’ strategy is to evoke fear in the hearts of governments around the world as their citizens leave to fight in Iraq and Syria. This appears to be a show of strength on their part. Secondly, I think they are building a vanguard of future fighters that could potentially be used around the world. We have recently seen this in the case of France and the couple involved in killings in the United States. We will likely see more of this because it’s so easy for radicalized people to go out there with a weapon and shout, “I’m doing this in the name of ISIS.” Journal: To what extent do you think that ISIS is linking up with or recruiting from terrorist groups already established in Southeast Asia, such as Jemaah Islamiyah or Abu Sayyaf ?3 Has ISIS reached out to these preexisting groups? Osman: It seems that many of these preexisting groups have basically pledged allegiance. I am not sure about the extent to which ISIS is reaching out to them—I think Jemaah Islamiyah is an Indonesia-based terrorist group formed in the 1990s to establish an Islamic state across Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, and the southern Philippines. Abu Sayyaf is a terrorist group formed in the early 1990s and based in the southwestern Philippines. 3
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