By Prashanth Parameswaran
The country’s leader tells Asia’s premier security summit that the terror threat could get a lot worse.
The Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier security summit, kicked off in Singapore on Friday with a keynote speech by Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
Lee’s speech addressed three issues: the balance of power; regional cooperation and terrorism. Unsurprisingly, the terrorism portion of the speech focused on the threat of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to Southeast Asia. As The Diplomat has noted, Singapore has been calling for greater regional cooperation to combat ISIS, with the city-state even holding its own counterterrorism symposium last month (See: “Singapore Kicks Off New Counterterrorism Symposium”).
In his speech, Lee noted that Southeast Asia has emerged as a “key recruitment center” for ISIS, with more than 500 Indonesians and dozens in Malaysia joining the group and forming their own unit, the Katibah Nusantara (Malay Archipelago Combat Unit). He also listed some troubling trends in Southeast Asia, including local radical groups pledging allegiance to ISIS and attacks being plotted in Malaysia (See: “Malaysia Says New Terror Group Trying to Create Islamic State”). “The threat is no longer over there; it is over here,” Lee said.
Read the full story at The Diplomat