Terrorism Trends in Southeast Asia

• Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines are showing themselves to be particularly adept at countering violent extremism through kinetic, legal, and rehabilitative means.
• In the Philippines, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s armed wing is in the process of demobilizing and disarming in the run up to the 2025 Bangsamoro Parliament election.
• In Indonesia, Jemaah Islamiyah’s leadership has declared their intention to dissolve the organization in order to ensure their survival as a community and maintain control over its schools.
• Threats remain from splinter factions and remnants of pro-Islamic State groups in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines have all made significant strides in combatting terrorism in their respective countries. Most notable in this regard has been the Philippines, which had long been ranked as among the top 15 countries most afflicted by terrorism in the world. The Philippines had faced an ongoing insurgency on the island of Mindanao, dating back to 1968. However, the establishment of Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) in 2019 has marked a transition, where armed insurgents have been demobilizing in preparation for elections slated for 2025. According to the Office of the Presidential Advisor on the Peace Process, as of May 2023, some 26,132 fighters from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s (MILF) armed wing, the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF) have been decommissioned.

Additionally, the aftermath of the failed Marawi siege, which saw some 800 Islamic State-aligned fighters killed, also prompted defections from IS-aligned groups. According to researcher Kenneth Yeo Yaoren, as of 2023, 1,866 fighters from Dawlah Islamiyah-Sulu and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) had surrendered to the Philippine Armed Forces. Furthermore, members of the Abu Sayyaf Group have also been surrendering to local authorities in significant numbers. According to research by Najwa Indanan Unga, Abu Sayyaf, BIFF, and Dawlah Islamiyah militants cited exhaustion, starvation, burnout, loss of public support, family pressures, disillusionment with the tactics and leaders of their respective groups, and a desire to live a normal life as key reasons undergirding their decision for surrender. BIFF members from MILF families also cited the changing political context as a key factor in their disengagement; with regional autonomy taking shape in Muslim Mindanao, there was no longer a need for armed struggle.

In Indonesia, the most significant Salafi Jihadist group, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), just declared its disbandment. On June 30, 2024, Jemaah Islamiyah’s 16 senior most leaders declared in a video that they were dissolving their current structure and “returning to the lap of the Republic of Indonesia.” To that end, they would revise the curriculum at their schools, arguably their greatest asset, to eliminate extremism and to conform with Ahlussunaah wa’al Jamaah or Sunni Islam. Moreover, going forward, they would comport themselves in accordance with Indonesian law. This move allows the community to survive and the group to re-form under a different name or perhaps names, working toward a more Islamic society and state through political mechanisms or through dakwah (Islamic propagation) and Islamic education, all tactics JI has been deploying over the past six years.

It is far too early for Southeast Asian nations to declare victory over terrorism, however. Terrorist threats remain in the form of remnants as well as small quasi-independent cells, most of which are Islamic State affiliated. These groups can still do a great deal of damage. For example, according to the Institute for the Policy Analysis of Conflict, in 2023 alone, IS claimed credit for some 20 small scale attacks in the Philippines targeting the police or military, almost all of them in the provinces of Lanao or in Central Mindanao. Remnants of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), the Maute Group, Islamic State-Sulu and Islamic State-Basilan continue to represent both a risk and a threat.

Malaysian authorities are responding with heightened vigilance after an IS sympathizer from a Jemaah Islamiyah family attacked a police post, killing two in the town of Ulu Tiram in Johor State on May 17. Based on available evidence, the perpetrator seems to have been a rare “lone wolf”, who was radicalized by family members. This was the first successful terrorist attack on Malaysian soil since the 2016 grenade attack on the Movida nightclub in the Puchong neighborhood of Kuala Lumpur by two IS supporters. Malaysian authorities went on high alert and with good reason; Malaysian police arrested six men and two women in June for alleged IS ties linking them to threats against the Prime Minister, the King, and other officials.

The greatest threat to Indonesian security remains attacks by IS-linked Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) cells, which have been responsible for all major terrorist attacks in Indonesia over the last six years, including the 2016 Starbucks bombing, the 2018 church bombings in Surabaya, the 2021 suicide bombing at the Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral compound in Makassar on Palm Sunday, and the 2022 suicide bombing at Astana Anyar police headquarters in Bandung. JAD is not as cohesive as it once was, as many of its leaders and members are in jail. However, the remnants can still do considerable damage. Over the past two years, Indonesian authorities successfully disrupted several terrorist plots in the planning phase. These included attacks on police stations in 2023 and 2024 by JAD cells, as well as one by a Jemaah Islamiyah cell in the city of Lampung. Authorities also disrupted a JAD plot on polling stations in the run up to the 2024 elections. This indicates that JAD remnants are still quite enthusiastic and are biding their time.

JI’s disbanding has raised the question of splinters. If past is prologue, it is possible that JI members who disagree with the decision to disband will break away and form their own clandestine organization. In 2004, a pro-bombing faction dedicated to carrying out Osama bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa broke off from JI proper to form Al-Qaeda in the Malay Archipelago, a name pointing to admiration rather than affiliation. They would carry out the 2004 Australian Embassy Bombing, the 2005 Bali bombing and the 2009 Marriott and Ritz Carlton Bombing. Such splintering could occur again. However, it is more likely that ideologically motivated JI youth seeking to commit acts of terrorism would instead migrate to existing JAD-IS remnants, especially if they have friends, mentors, or family members who have already made such a shift.

To reduce the likelihood of splinter factions emerging, JI’s senior leadership may benefit from studying al Gamaah al Islamiyah’s (GI) organizational deradicalization in Egypt. After GI leaders decided to abandon violence, they traveled around to prisons that held their members and held discussions to socialize the decision among them. They also published more than two dozen pamphlets justifying their logic Islamically. With permission from the authorities, JI’s senior leaders who were most involved in this decision, notably Abu Rusydan, Para Wijayanto, Arif Siswanto, Bambang Sukirno and Abu Fatih, could hold meetings with mid-level and rank-and-file members in prisons, in JI pesantren (Islamic boarding schools), and in their strongholds to explain the rationale behind the decision to disband the group. They could also embark on a similar writing process. Such opportunities for discussion and processing could lead to greater acceptance, especially by the younger generations, which could, in turn, lead to greater inter-generational commitment to the licit activities that come next for the community.