Jakarta’s Syrian shockFOR decades, South-East Asia has had two lucky bulwarks against militant Islam: the peaceful, tolerant form of their faith practised by most South-East Asian Muslims; and the relative incompetence of local jihadists. But South-East Asia’s tradition of syncretic Islam has been threatened by stricter forms imported from the Middle East, seen as more modern and correct. Violent jihadism seems to be following the same pattern, if the bloody violence in central Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, on January 14th, is anything to go by.
Four civilians and four terrorists died in the bombing of a Starbucks and a traffic-police post, and a long shoot-out with the police, that day. Authorities believe that an Indonesian, Bahrun Naim, planned the attack from Syria. He heads a South-East Asian unit fighting with Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq. Governments in the region have long feared something like this.
Indonesian police have since arrested at least 13 suspected terrorists, and killed another. In Malaysia the police arrested a man suspected of planning to blow himself up at a bar, and three other...Continue reading
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