Militant threat quelled in SE Asia - Malaysia PM

26 January AFP

The threat posed by Islamist militants in Southeast Asia has largely been suppressed thanks to the efforts of nations in the region, Malaysia's prime minister said .

Speaking at the Global Economic Forum in Davos, Najib Razak said that cooperation between his country and others including Indonesia and the Philippines had helped to tackle Al-Qaeda-linked groups.

“The whole threat of militant Islam, I think it has receded quite substantially in Southeast Asia,” Najib told global politicians and business leaders gathered in the Swiss ski resort.

“I think most of it is behind us. I think we've dealt with radical Islam.” Najib pointed in particular to Malaysia's involvement hosting peace talks between Muslim rebels in the southern Philippines, and its deployment of troops to head an international truce-monitoring force in the region.

“We were involved in solving the southern Philippines problem,” Najib said.

“That meant that the whole potential of that area being radicalised, being linked up with Al-Qaeda directly or through the various groups, that has been eliminated. “That's a huge contribution towards peace and a more moderate form of Islam in Southeast Asia.” The Philippines government signed an accord last October with Muslim rebels the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), who have been fighting since the 1970s for autonomy in the southern Philippines.

The lawless area had become a hideout for members of two Al Qaeda-linked militant groups in Southeast Asia, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and Abu Sayyaf. The Malaysian leader added that neighbouring Indonesia had meanwhile been “more effective” recently in tackling the threat from madrassas -- Islamic schools that have been a source of radicalism in both countries.

Najib said that although in the past some form of military-type actions was “unavoidable”, the task was now to engage with fundamentalist Muslims and persuade them to embrace more moderate forms of Islam. Malaysia was one of a number of countries in Southeast Asia that was threatened in the past by militants, particularly from JI. JI carried out dozens of attacks in Indonesia in the past decade including the 2002 Bali bombings, but a Malaysian minister said last year that the group had also planned to bomb Kuala Lumpur's iconic Petronas twin towers.