W.Post : Terrorists Find Easy Passage Into Thailand
Yap Yok Foo
Terrorists Find Easy Passage Into Thailand
Experts Say Lax Border Controls Are Opportunity for Al Qaeda, Regional
Militants
Boats that cross the narrow Kolok River on the border of Thailand and
Malaysia often carry smuggled goods and are able to pass unnoticed by
authorities. (Ellen Nakashima -- The Washington Post)
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 27, 2003;
SUNGAI KOLOK, Thailand -- All that separates northern Malaysia and
southern Thailand here is a meandering ribbon of dun-colored water.
Men with wiry bodies ply the river in wooden boats dozens of times a
day, smuggling bags of Thai rice or Malaysian flour, and ferrying
women in head scarves and men in Muslim caps on the five-minute trip
across the water to shop or visit relatives. Border guards are few.
It is here, said an intelligence official from the region, that a key
Indonesian al Qaeda operative named Riduan Isamuddin, known as
Hambali, crossed from Malaysia into Thailand in January 2002. Then, in
February, Hambali, Southeast Asia's most-wanted Islamic militant, went
to the Thai capital, Bangkok, Indonesian police said. There, according
to terrorism analysts, he convened a meeting of al Qaeda operatives at
which he discussed a tactical shift in operations in the region.
The targets would no longer be Western embassies; the attacks would
instead hit bars, cafes and nightclubs frequented by Westerners. That
decision appears to have culminated in the bombing last October in
Bali that killed almost 200 people.
Intelligence analysts do not consider Thailand to be a breeding ground
for international terrorism. But in the past year, its lax immigration
controls have made it a country of opportunity for militants on the
run, according to some of those experts. Just as stanching the flow of
money across borders is important to fighting terrorism, they said, so
is stopping the flow of terrorists.
"It's a great point of transit," said Zachary Abuza, an expert in
Southeast Asian terrorism at Simmons College in Boston. "It's also a
great place to do business. Thailand's important to groups like al
Qaeda because it's always been a center of people-smuggling,
gun-smuggling, document-forging, and it has such a large underground
economy."
Another al Qaeda suspect, Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, crossed the border
from Malaysia here at about the same time as Hambali, intelligence
sources said. And about 25 miles east of this town, at a spot where
the Kolok River flows into the Gulf of Thailand, another Islamic
militant fleeing Singapore and Malaysia crossed the border in December
2001, according to an intelligence official in the region. Mas Selamat
Kastari, a Malaysian in league with Hambali, had allegedly plotted to
hijack a U.S., British or Singaporean plane and crash it into
Singapore's airport.
Thai authorities said they missed capturing Hambali by less than a day
as he moved within the country. And, they said, by the time they
learned and verified that Kastari was in Thailand, he had fled. The
men were sought here as Singapore cracked down on militants plotting
to hit Western targets in Singapore, analysts said.
Thai officials, including Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, firmly
deny that Hambali and his colleagues did anything but travel through
the country. They deny they ever held a meeting in Bangkok to discuss
terror tactics.
"If you ask whether there is a terrorist operation in Thailand, the
answer is no," Foreign Minister Surakiat Sathirathai said in an
interview this month in Phuket, an island resort in southern Thailand.
"There is no network, no operation, no cell, no serious planning of
anything."
The far south of Thailand, where Muslims are the majority in a country
that is 90 percent Buddhist, was the scene of secessionist attacks in
past decades, but in recent years such violence largely died out.
In the past year, however, the region has been hit by a series of
Buddhist temple bombings and schoolhouse torchings, and the killings
of 21 police officers. The government attributes the violence mostly
to criminal gangs and bandits jockeying for control of the gun, drug,
gambling and prostitution trades. Other analysts see politics possibly
coming back into play.
According to Southeast Asian terror expert Rohan Gunaratna, an
underground group called Jemaah Salafiya has emerged in the southern
Thai provinces. It is associated with Jemaah Islamiah, a regional
Islamic militant network that claims Hambali as a key strategist, he
said. The Thai group's members have attended meetings with Jemaah
Islamiah members in Malaysia, by his account.
Thai officials from several security and intelligence agencies said
they had never heard of Jemaah Salafiya. They expressed doubt that
radicals could make inroads in the south because established
separatist groups are for the most part inactive and because people
here largely practice a moderate form of Islam.
Outside the government, some Thais believe their country could be
courting trouble. Like Indonesia last year, they said, Thailand
appears to be more concerned with maintaining an image of safety that
will keep foreign tourists and their money flowing in than with
confronting possible threats.
Kavi Chongkittavorn, an editor at the Nation, an English-language
national newspaper, said that the porous nature of Thailand's borders
and the move by some young Muslims in the south toward a more austere,
puritanical Islam could one day be turned to the advantage of
terrorists.
"Thailand is an ideal situation for a person like Hambali, who comes
in and moves out," Kavi said. "We insist on believing that we are such
a nice country, that nobody's going to hurt us. I think that is a very
selfish way of looking at things."
Some said that high unemployment among young Muslims in the south is
feeding a sense of alienation. "There is a very, very high possibility
that they can fall victims or become tools" of Islamic militants, said
Yusouf Longpi, a founder and former member of the Pattani United
Liberation Organization, once a potent Muslim separatist movement in
the south.
As smugglers on either side of the Kolok River tossed bags of chilies
and containers of palm oil into boats, Haji Ahmad, a gentle
42-year-old cleric who teaches in a mosque here, acknowledged local
problems. "You get guys who have trouble with the law and then move
here because this is not in the eyesight of the authorities," he said.
"People go back and forth. There is a lot of trafficking. I feel very
heavy-hearted."
Certainly, here in this small border town, Muslim tolerance is on
display. At night, men in Muslim robes ride scooters past nightclubs
featuring dangdut, sensuous, salsa-like moves set to melodies evoking
India. Young women seductively comb coal-colored tresses at
tinsel-strung cafes, and hookers in hip-huggers play cards on plastic
tables.
Under a 1997 amendment to the Thai constitution, the central
government in Bangkok delegated more to the provinces, and has
developed programs aimed at alleviating the south's poverty so as to
help avert extremism bred of disaffection.
Paisal Deraman, the elected head of Lubokgong village near the Kolok
River, said that thanks to a government grant of 600,000 baht (about
$14,000), his village is opening a batik factory that will provide
badly needed jobs and income to residents.
He sat cross-legged on a bench on his porch, wearing a black and white
checked sarong. The reports that Hambali had passed through did not
concern him, he said. "Look, here there have been shootings, arson
attacks against schools, fighting between the separatists and the
government," he said. "It's almost normal."
Ismail Lutphi, a cleric and rector of Yala Islamic College, preaches a
purist Wahhabi Islam, but said he molds his sermons to his audience
and eschews politics. He said he is puzzled by notions of Islamic
militants gaining a toehold here. "I cannot see how they're going to
penetrate the community because the governance of our community is
pretty solid, top to bottom," he said.
Thai officials said the government continues to watch closely for the
possible emergence of terrorism, but lack of resources has hampered
intelligence-gathering. Some agencies lack satellite phones and
phone-tapping equipment, a Thai security official said. And the
immigration police's computer system in remote locations such as this
is not connected to police and intelligence in Bangkok, he said.
"We cannot compare to the CIA. . . . We cannot compare to Singapore or
Malaysia," he said. Another Thai security official said that lack of
coordination and rivalries among agencies also have hampered
intelligence operations.
Nonetheless, Thailand has established a counterterrorism task force.
It has stepped up security at airports and along its borders,
officials said. Security and intelligence officials hold regular
consultations with Muslim clerics and other leaders from the south to
assess community feelings on topics including the economy, security
and a possible U.S.-led war with Iraq.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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