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ASEAN
dealing with immigration, certain aspects of customs, consular matters, and domestic security. The ASEAN Senior OfďŹ cials on Drugs is one of the oldest ASEAN platforms for regional cooperation in dealing with regional problems. It focuses on prevention and rehabilitation, education and public awareness, and law enforcement. There is also an association of ASEAN police forces called ASEANAPOL, which, however, is outside the formal ASEAN framework. These bodies share information, intelligence and databases and otherwise cooperate at the operational level. In November 2004, the ASEAN Ministers of Justice or Law or Attorneys General signed a Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters. Some acts of terrorism in Southeast Asia have been motivated by domestic political or social grievances and aspirations. Others are inspired and driven by causes that transcend national boundaries or ethnic divisions and receive support from like-minded cohorts from outside the country. The latter kind, the international kind of terrorism, can be dealt with only through international cooperation. At the regional level, ASEAN countries have cooperated in combating international terrorism, by themselves or with others. As early as 1997, the ASEAN ministers dealing with transnational crime designated terrorism as one of the crimes on which they would cooperate. After the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States and the subsequent terrorist acts or threats in some other places, including a number of ASEAN countries, ASEAN stepped up its anti-terrorist cooperation. Operational collaboration among law-enforcement agencies in the ASEAN countries involved has resulted in numerous arrests of actual or would-be terrorists and the foiling of terrorist plots. Some of these efforts have received the support of other countries, notably Australia and the United States. The ASEAN