By Prashanth Parameswaran
Threat rising despite initial measures to counter movement’s influence.
Officials from Indonesia and Malaysia, Southeast Asia’s two Muslim-majority states, have expressed concern that the threat from the Islamic State (IS) movement in Syria and Iraq could be growing in their countries in spite of initial measures taken to counter the movement’s appeal.
In Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, the nation’s counterterrorism chief Saud Usman Nasution warned last week that recruitment of IS fighters from Indonesia had more than tripled in just a few months. All in all, Saud said around 514 Indonesians have gone to Iraq and Syria to fight with the movement, with about half being students or migrant workers who had already been living in neighboring countries. That makes Indonesia Southeast Asia’s biggest supplier of IS fighters by far, raising questions about what might happen once those militants return home.
On Sunday, the National Counterterrorism Agency launched Indonesia’s first ever public blueprint for tackling terrorism, with officials stressing counter-radicalization and de-radicalization programs in addition to traditional law enforcement measures. But while the government has banned IS, Indonesian laws currently do not allow authorities to charge or detain IS supporters who leave to fight for the movement. That is a significant limitation for Indonesian authorities relative to their counterparts in Malaysia.
Read the full story at The Diplomat