Terrorism in Southeast Asia Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Terrorism in Southeast Asia - Essay Example In spite of that fact if US being the most powerful state on the planet up till now, as well as that US has its assertive role in the region, the regions and the countries that have been facing the terrorism have not exactly been backing the US in case of the terrorism. It is to be seen as to why that is he case. Now the case has changes to some extent as we shall see in the case of Indonesia (Capie 2004., pp 1-3). South East Asia has been having periodical episodes of terror campaign as well as the episodes of political violence. Both scenarios are related ad counted in the terrorism heading. The terrorist activities include the communists group that is based in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines. The activities are linked against the socialist regimes in these countries. In many cases, the terrorist activities have been directed against some states. As it happened in case of Christian anti-separatist groups in the southern Philippines who were opposing Muslim secessionists and militia groups in East Timor, Papua and various other parts of Indonesia. There have been some developments taking place after the war in Afghanistan in the era of 1980s. In this war, US supported mujahhedin guerillas fought against the soviet occupation forces. Since the 1980s, there have been changes in the face of the terrorist groups and the terrorism in the region (Manyin 2003., pp 12-17). Analysis The role of Afghans has been central to the development of the terrorist networks in south East Asia since many years. There are approximately 230 million Muslims in south East Asia, which is just the 20% of the total percentage of the Muslims in the whole world. This 20% of the Muslim population has moderate views about other religious groups. However, the extreme forms arose from other parts of the world including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The terrorist groups in these areas were making an appeal to the people to join them. The appeal was strengthened and heightened when there was a recruitment process that went on to recruit the people to fight against the resistance forces of Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Many powerful leaders of the Islamic groups based in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia joined the terrorist groups and were trained, and they served in Afghanistan. After this recruitment stage, there was a boost in the Islamic resistance in Afghanistan on a large scale. This added a lot to the new changes in the face of the Southeast Asian Islamic separatism. The funding was also being gained from stronger movements that were based on an international level having strong financial backgrounds. The role of socio economic factors The socio economic status has further added to the activities of the fundamental Islamic groups in Southeast Asia. All the Islamic movements need to have autonomy. Nevertheless, their mission of gaining autonomy has been under resistance. The resistance has been shown by many central governments. Alternatively, in some cases, the autonomy has been gained but it has been used or implemented in an ineffective way as in the case of southern Philippines. The madrasaas The world saw Asia drown in the financial crisis in the year 1997. Since than there has bean a pressure on the regional