Amid Syrian political turmoil, Southeast Asia should be vigilant against spread of extremism: Analysts
As well as calling on authorities in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia to guard against terror threats, experts also warned that the rebel takeover in Syria should be “a real cause for concern” for China.
Islamic State militants pass a checkpoint bearing the group's trademark black flag in Kirkuk, Iraq, in 2014. 10 years after the Islamic State group declared its caliphate in large parts of Iraq and Syria, the extremists now control no land, have lost many prominent founding leaders and are mostly away from the world news headlines. (File photo: AP/Hadi Mizban)
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JAKARTA/KUALA LUMPUR/SINGAPORE: Southeast Asian authorities must be vigilant in the aftermath of rebel forces seizing control over Syria from ousted prime minister Bashar al-Assad, say analysts.
Some experts warn that terrorism groups could exploit the ongoing power vacuum in the country and pose a security threat in the region.
"The situation in Syria is very volatile and can at any time descend into conflict and violence and this is something which terrorism groups have exploited in the past to gain new followers and support," said Adhe Bhakti, executive director of Jakarta-based think-tank, Center for Radicalism and Deradicalization Studies (PAKAR) told CNA.
Meanwhile, a representative from Indonesia’s Counter-Terrorism Agency has urged for collaboration between national agencies, as well as neighbouring countries.
The civil war in Syria, which began more than a decade ago, paved the way for the formation of the Islamic State (IS) and the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front.
Both groups have attracted hundreds of foreign fighters from Southeast Asian countries while their teachings have reportedly radicalised thousands of Muslims in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, inspiring some to launch deadly terrorist attacks in their respective countries.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the organisation which launched an offensive against the Assad regime last month, soon taking control over the capital Damascus and other important Syrian cities, was formed in 2017, when Al-Nusra, which was by then renamed Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, merged with several other rebel factions to form the rebel coalition.
On Dec 17, Syrian state media reported that Ahmed al-Sharaa, head of the rebel coalition, said that all armed opposition groups in the country would be dissolved and rebel fighters would be brought under the authority of the Defence Ministry, as the new government worked to build a functioning state.
It was not clear how or when this would be achieved, or whether the competing armed factions would agree.
HTS denied that it still has links with any terror network. However, many countries and the UN Security Council have continued to designate the group as a terrorist organisation.
Meanwhile, IS, once a terror network capable of coordinating attacks through its many branches in Africa and Southeast Asia, has become a shadow of its former self.
In Syria, its fighters are scattered and holed up in small cells in the country’s eastern deserts ever since it suffered a string of defeats against Assad’s regime, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces and other rebel groups. IS declared an end to its caliphate in Syria in 2019.
However, experts warned that IS still has the potential to make a comeback. And while some experts say the risk of a spread of extremism to Southeast Asia is low, others warn there is a chance that violence could spill over to the region.
“If there is further instability, conflict, and weak governance in Syria, the influence of IS might not be contained,” Aizat Shamsuddin, the founder of Initiate.my – an initiative to promote tolerance and prevent violence in Malaysia – told CNA.
IS, which aims to make Syria an Islamic caliphate with strict religious principles, has harshly criticised HTS’ appeals for peaceful coexistence with religious minorities and vowed not to accept any new government in Damascus unless IS itself was in charge.
Meanwhile, previous international support for Syria, currently under a transitional government led by Mohammed al-Bashir, could be dwindling. US President-elect Donald Trump has already announced that the country will not become involved in Syria when he comes into power for the second time in January.
He also vowed to withdraw all of the roughly 1,000 US troops on the ground in Syria – part of his broader isolationist stance in terms of foreign policy – which have been keeping IS fighters at bay.
If that happens, experts said that the ruling forces are pretty much on their own should IS decide to launch an offensive, particularly with many countries reluctant to forge a relationship with a potential HTS-led government which they consider a terrorist organisation.
A "REAL CAUSE FOR CONCERN" TO CHINA
Despite China’s geographical distance from the conflict, analysts warned that the rebel takeover in Syria should be raising alarm bells in Beijing.
Jonathan Ping from Bond University, a China studies expert, described developments in Syria as “a real cause for concern” for China, citing credible reports that the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) has been fighting alongside HTS.
“(The militants’) control of the region and their broader influence could bring battlefield skills, provoke unrest, threaten stability, and challenge China’s regional security and investments,” he said.
The TIP, also known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), is a Uyghur separatist group originating from China’s Xinjiang province. It has longstanding ties to al-Qaeda and other affiliated extremist groups.
The group, which seeks to establish an independent Islamic state in Xinjiang known as East Turkestan, has been designated a terrorist organisation by China and the United Nations.
Beijing has accused the TIP of orchestrating several terrorist attacks within China between 2008 and 2015. These incidents reportedly involved vehicle-ramming attacks targeting pedestrians, public stabbings, car bombings, and suicide bombings.
Ping cautioned that extremism and radicalisation in Syria could accelerate and spread across the Middle East and Central Asia, eventually posing a threat to China’s western Xinjiang region.
“Given China’s Belt and Road Initiative interests in the region, the rising terrorism risks in Central Asia demand close attention and proactive countermeasures,” he said.
On Dec 8, the day the Syrian regime collapsed, TIP released a video in which its fighters, armed with machine guns and dressed in military fatigues, issued a direct threat to Beijing.
The footage featured a masked militant naming several cities in China’s Xinjiang region, the homeland of the Uyghurs, while pledging to "continue the fight" and expressing hopes for "victory in our own land".
While the potential spread of extremism to China’s Xinjiang region is a concern, Raffaello Pantucci, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research of S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, noted that there is currently “very thin evidence” suggesting the TIP would escalate its activities to target China in the near future.
“TIP has been in existence since 2008, (but) you can count on one hand the attacks within China that have a clear link to them,” said Pantucci.
Pantuci added that Beijing is likely to adopt a similar approach to the one it took with Afghanistan when the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
“That approach has been to try to basically embrace the Taliban, hug them closely, and in that way, develop relations to hopefully neutralise the threat.
"And we haven’t seen any attacks (against China since), so maybe it’s working,” he said, adding that China is also likely to offer financial support and establish economic structures for the incoming regime in Syria.
He noted that HTS “sees incentives” in rebranding itself as a Syrian nationalist organisation that is “serious in serving the country”, downplaying its identity as an extremist group.
This strategy reduces the threat of a “terrorist bounty” on its leadership, increasing its chances of survival. China is likely to rely on this shift in focus to help contain the spread of extremist ideologies and prevent their influence from reaching its western territories.
Ping of Bond University said that while China is likely to adopt a "softer approach" in addressing the potential security threat from Syria, Beijing "will not relent" on counterterrorism efforts, particularly in areas where it can collaborate with countries in the region.
“For instance, (China) is likely to further enhance its border security and intelligence collaborations with its (Western) neighbours. Other measures may include the deepening of counterterrorism cooperation with partnering nations, and bolster their security infrastructures.”
A NEW WAVE OF EXTREMISM?
With Trump signalling that he would keep the US away from Syria when he takes office, the US Central Command under current president Joe Biden launched airstrikes against more than 75 IS targets this month.
“ISIS will try to use this period to reestablish its capabilities, to create safe havens,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Dec 9, using another acronym for the group. “As our precision strikes over the weekend demonstrate, we are determined not to let that happen.”
It is not yet known how much IS has been weakened since the air strike. But Al Chaidar, a terrorism expert from Indonesia’s Malikussaleh University predicted that it would not reduce IS’s capability to launch terrorist attacks against civilian targets in Syria.
“They will likely launch suicide bomb attacks or small-scale offensive in Syria just to send a message that they are still around,” Chaidar told CNA, adding that at the same time, IS might try to rebuild its strength in the country.
Even with its fighters in disarray, IS managed to launch 259 claimed attacks across Syria this year, up from 121 the year before, according to US-based think-tank, the Hudson Institute.
Some of these attacks targeted dozens of camps and prisons holding approximately 50,000 IS-affiliated individuals, the majority of them foreign fighters and their families.
According to the Indonesian Counter Terrorism Agency (BNPT), there were at least 300 IS-affiliated Indonesians in Syria as of 2023, including women and children, with many more killed in combat or returned home.
It is not known how many Malaysians are still in Syria but in 2019, the then counter-terrorism chief Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay told Al-Jazeera that 51 Malaysians, including 17 children, were still in the war-torn country.
Some experts believe a conflict between IS and the ruling forces in Syria could prompt the former to make another call for their sympathisers in Southeast Asia to join their ranks.
“Although they are not as prominent as they were in the past, IS still has many followers in Southeast Asia,” Adhe of PAKAR said.
There is also a chance that violence could spill over to the region, experts said.
IS sympathisers in Southeast Asia have been responsible for some of the deadliest attacks in the region, most notably the 2017 siege of Marawi City in southern Philippines which killed more than 1,000 IS militants, security officials and civilians and the 2018 bombings of several targets in Surabaya, Indonesia which took the lives of 15 innocent civilians.
“IS is jealous of HTS’s success (in overthrowing Assad). IS want to claim victory for themselves because they were the ones which had been fighting Assad from the beginning,” Adhe of PAKAR said. “They might feel motivated to do something. If not in Syria then perhaps elsewhere.”
Even years after IS lost control over Syria, authorities continue to make arrests against IS sympathisers in Southeast Asia, proving the die-hard nature of the group’s radical ideology.
Noor Huda Ismail, a visiting fellow at S Rajaratnam School of International Studies cautions that the presence of online platforms may potentially increase the risk of the Syrian conflict’s powerful narrative of resistance spilling into the region, citing how IS is known to exploit digital spaces to spread propaganda, recruit and galvanise support.
“IS’s propaganda machinery, particularly through online platforms, may amplify these developments, using images of suffering or oppression to evoke a sense of imagined solidarity among recruits,” the terrorism expert explained, adding that such machineries can especially resonate with vulnerable youths.
“This resurgence (of IS) could inspire local affiliates or lone actors, emboldening them to carry out attacks or join the cause abroad,” Noor Huda told CNA, referring to people who might self-radicalise after being explosed to extremist messages or propaganda.
In June of this year, Malaysian police arrested eight people including a former lecturer for alleged links to IS. The eight suspects had reportedly come from various occupational and economic backgrounds, including housewives and educated professionals.
Initial police investigations into the suspects revealed threats against Malaysia’s King, Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, dignitaries and the police.
In August, police in Jakarta arrested two alleged IS sympathisers and confiscated an explosive device along with a rifle and a host of IS paraphernalia. Police believed the pair were plotting an attack but refused to divulge the target.
Most recently, in October, a 17-year-old Singaporean student was arrested less than a month before his plan to carry out a terror attack in the heartlands. The teen also intended to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State and engage in armed violence.
According to Singapore's Internal Security Department, the student became exposed to the teachings of foreign radical preachers in August 2023 while searching for religious knowledge online.
CALL FOR VIGILANCE
However, Noor Huda said that although the ongoing instability and sporadic violence in Syria could potentially fuel Islamic State propaganda and contribute to its resurgence, the risk of a new wave of extremism in Southeast Asia is currently relatively low.
“Increased awareness of the complexity of Middle Eastern conflicts and the trauma caused by the rise of ISIS—rooted in false promises—has reduced the appeal of extremist narratives,” he told CNA.
Munira Mustaffa, the founder of Malaysia-based security consultancy Chasseur Group echoed the sentiment, saying the likelihood of the situation in Syria fuelling extremism in this region was low to medium at best.
“IS ideology has lost its appeal in Southeast Asia and shows no signs of gaining new followers. Recent arrests, including those in 2024, reveal that most suspects are recidivists or old members still holding onto old ideologies rather than new converts. This pattern suggests the movement is stagnant rather than growing,” she said.
Munira said although there are reports of IS attempting to rebuild in Syria, HTS has been actively conducting its own counter-terrorism campaigns against IS and Al-Qaeda members for the past four years.
However, experts believe that IS can still exploit the current power vacuum and instability to make a comeback.
“These uncertainties mean that Singapore needs to monitor the situation carefully and share information with other Southeast Asian countries,” RSIS research fellow Faizal Rahman told CNA.
Faizal said ASEAN needs to leverage the use of Our Eyes Initiative, which was adopted at the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting in 2018 to promote strategic information sharing on non-traditional threats, such as terrorism, radicalisation and violent extremism.
CNA has contacted the Malaysian Home Ministry and Singapore’s Internal Security Department with regards to the latest developments in Syria.
A senior official with Indonesia’s Counter-Terrorism Agency said Indonesia is monitoring the situation in Syria closely as well as its potential threat to stability in Southeast Asia.
“We will remain vigilant. It is the BNPT’s duty to take preventive measures by increasing national resilience against radicalisation and extremism,” BNPT director on terrorism prevention, Irfan Idris told CNA.
The agency, he said, is working with other ministries in Indonesia as well as its counterparts in neighbouring countries, to monitor and stop the spread of IS propaganda as well as the flow of people and money between Southeast Asia and Syria.
“It is imperative that everyone is working together,” he said.
Additional reporting by Izzah Aqilah Norman.
