ASEAN Affairs Forum

[devillianangel]

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=339670289790293

 

[devillianangel]

 

[katarabhumi]

Indonesia proposes 'mini-Interpol' plan to boost Asean counter-terrorism efforts
24 October 2017

JAKARTA (THE JAKARTA POST/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - With the rise of radicalism and terrorism in the region now seen as Asean's biggest security threat, Indonesia has proposed the creation of a "mini-Interpol" that would involve six countries in the region sharing intelligence through the "Our Eyes" initiative.

Defence Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu mooted the plan during the 11th Asean Defence Ministers Meeting (ADMM) in the northern Philippine city of Clark on Monday (Oct 23).

He said that while he appreciated the success the Philippine government had in flushing the largely foreign fighters out of the city of Marawi, he saw a potential threat in the Islamic State in Iraq in Syria (ISIS) or Daesh loyalists being able to retreat to neighbouring countries to rebuild bases. Multi-lateral connections between the six countries, he said, would keep the terrorists at bay.

"This preventive measures will provide us with extensive information about the existence of terrorist groups in Asean countries. Thus, we can destroy them before they get larger," Ryamizard told the forum. The six countries proposed are Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, Singapore and the Philippines.

After months of clashes between Daesh fighters and the Philippine military that destroyed large parts of Marawi, the Philippines Defence Secretary on Monday announced the southern Philippines has been liberated from terrorism.

Under Our Eyes, each participating country would create a new unit for sharing intelligence between them, while the person in charge from each country would be expected to maintain communications on a regular basis about the collection of information.

Multilateral intelligence sharing is not common in South-east Asia as most countries prefer to exchange such information bilaterally. Our Eyes was modelled on the post-World War Two "Five Eyes" intelligence alliance involving the United States, Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Canada that was established to monitor the then Soviet Union.

"However, Our Eyes would have nothing to do with politics. It is purely an initiative to fight the existence of terrorist groups and maintain peace in our region," Ryamizard said.

Several countries have expressed support for the initiative, saying it could play a significant role in maintaining the security of Asean countries.

Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said he could see the importance of Our Eyes and would support it "all the way." "Mr Ryamizard, we are fully behind this initiative and we can see the sense of the arguments that you put forward in this forum. You have our total support," he said.

The Philippines, chair of Asean this year, is hosting the 11th ADMM, as well as the fourth Asean Defence Ministers' Meeting - Plus, which is to include eight Asean dialogue partners: Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Russia and the US. On Tuesday, the forum is expected to discuss broader issues, including the Korean Peninsula crisis and the South China Sea dispute.

http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se...plan-to-boost-asean-counter-terrorism-efforts

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[Logam42]

ASEAN TURNS 50, WAKE ME UP WHEN IT'S OVER (SCMP)

Even a loose cannon like Donald Trump cannot breathe life into a Asean meeting, which can be turgid, pompous and comatose at best

BY KARIM RASLAN

10 NOV 2017

Asean, meet Donald Trump.

Donald Trump, meet Asean.

Who will prevail in an encounter between the Great Disruptor and the world’s most boring and protocol-conscious regional grouping?

I’m not betting on Trump.

Attending an Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting is like trying to walk backwards through molten palm sugar.

After a while, you just give up and go with the flow … even Rodrigo “Dirty Harry” Duterte has had to behave in the face of Asean’s endless, sleep-inducing meetings.

Just over a year ago, I came up with the idea of relaunching my column – the one you’re reading now – as “Ceritalah Asean” (or “Tell Me a Story, Asean”).

The concept – meeting and interviewing ordinary people from across this region of 650 million – seemed really exciting.

However, as I got to work hitting the ground, listening to farmers, migrant workers, tourist guides, day-labourers and schoolteachers from Bassein, to Nam Dinh, Manado and Bacolod, I began to realise that I’d made a little mistake.

Southeast Asia is vibrant, sexy and alive.

Asean – as a supranational organisation – is turgid, pompous and comatose at best.

Essentially, Asean is the antithesis to everything that makes Southeast Asia interesting.

Its streets are raucous. It’s unpredictable.

By comparison, Asean is elitist. It’s most comfortable in luxury hotels, resorts and convention centres. Its meetings are well-choreographed talkfests.

So while I’m still deeply fascinated, indeed in love with our region, its people and their stories, I find it extremely difficult to muster much enthusiasm for rooms full of bureaucrats.

I still think Southeast Asia’s huge, growing economy (which in 2013 had a combined GDP of US$2.4 trillion) – destined to be the fourth-largest in the world by 2050 according to the consultancy McKinsey – has boundless potential.

But I gotta be honest: Asean has no poetry.

Zero. Zilch.

There’s no shared emotional connection – unless you can count durian-eating as a form of bonding.

Even our so-called disagreements – mostly over the South China Sea – have become predictable as China’s geopolitical and economic influence in our region grows.

Indeed, I would recommend any book (and a great many columns) on Asean as a sure-fire cure for insomnia.

More seriously: Asean has not really helped to provide the infrastructure as well as jobs that many of its 650 million people desperately need. That task is still very much on the shoulders of individual nation states.

And it has done even less to protect the most vulnerable of that 650 million (several of whom I encountered via this column) from abuse, exploitation and impunity – particularly the region’s migrant workers.

Again, zero.

This is why I can’t conjure up any excitement for the upcoming gathering in Manila – even though it’s the 50th anniversary and Trump is apparently staying for the whole event.

Yawn.

Given what snore-fests these Asean meetings are – one has a feeling he will regret his last-minute decision to attend the East Asia Summit, where he along with Asian leaders will meet their Asean counterparts.

Quite frankly – it really doesn’t matter, in the grand scheme of things, whether he’s there or not.

Foreign policy pundits will argue that his attendance is to reassure the region that America isn’t “retreating from the Asia-Pacific/the World” – but is this really the case?

The barometer of American (and for that matter, Chinese) power and influence in the region – is hardly dependent on whether its leaders attend a boring round of speeches as well as an awkward “family photo” in the host nation’s traditional garb.

People cry “but it’s the optics.”

Trust me: this is one case where optics really, really does not matter – at least in the long run.

Perhaps it’s time we stop believing that our region’s peace, prosperity and reputation is at stake at every Summit.

But maybe I am being too hard on Asean.

It did, after all, achieve its purpose of keeping Southeast Asia relatively peaceful and neutral in the decades since its formation via the 1967 Bangkok Declaration.

And maybe boring is good – at least with regards to Asean’s diplomatic agenda?

When the grouping was first conceived in the height of the cold war, Southeast Asia was a cauldron with distrust, suspicion and outright violence at every corner – from Vietnam to Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Asean provided a neutral platform to bring states together, to build trust and familiarity.

It’s been a long, arduous process with, arguably, the normalisation of Indonesia and the Indochinese states at the core of its agenda.


The sheer, grinding tedium and rigidity of the Asean process – the communiqués and set-piece speeches – exhausts all our leaders to such an extent that they often don’t have the energy or interest to scheme and plot against one another.

Instead, all they want to do is escape.

And maybe, just maybe, that should be enough for us in the region.

We can, and certainly should, focus on building business-to-business, media-to-media and people-to-people ties regardless of what happens in Asean.

Regional integration – especially in Southeast Asia – must be driven from the ground up.

So Donald, don’t even try to be too clever.

Asean is structured and crafted to defeat and subsume grand-standing and point-scoring.

 

[pr1v4t33r]

 

[UMNOPutra]

Salute to Thailand ...

 

[UMNOPutra]

Southeast Asia faces 'long list' of risks in 2019, banks say

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has forecast the slowdown will continue for the five countries -- Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand -- with growth falling to 4.8% in 2019, down from 5.0% in 2018 and 5.1% in 2017.

"The list of risk factors is just too long to mention," Mohamed Faiz Nagutha, the bank's Southeast Asia economist, told reporters Thursday. Among the obstacles he cited, U.S.-China trade tensions, China's economic slowdown and the possibility of more interest rate increases by the U.S. Federal Reserve than the market anticipates.

Political risk, meanwhile, remains a major threat in some countries, such as Thailand, due to uncertainty over upcoming elections, Credit Suisse said. Southeast Asia's third-largest economy is expected to return to civilian rule early next year, but such details as the party composition of a future government are unknown.

Indonesia will hold a presidential election in April. Both Credit Suisse and Bank of America Merrill Lynch believe incumbent President Joko Widodo will remain in office. But OCBC's Ling pointed out that the campaign has just started, and cautions that there may be market or business uncertainty as the vote draws near.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Sout...2019-banks-say

Political Risk : Election
Thailand - 24 Feb - General Election
Indonesia - 17 Apr - General Election
The Philippines - May - Midterm Election

 

[pr1v4t33r]

 

[GraveDigger388]

ASEAN TURNS 50, WAKE ME UP WHEN IT'S OVER (SCMP)

Even a loose cannon like Donald Trump cannot breathe life into a Asean meeting, which can be turgid, pompous and comatose at best

BY KARIM RASLAN

10 NOV 2017

Asean, meet Donald Trump.

Donald Trump, meet Asean.

Who will prevail in an encounter between the Great Disruptor and the world’s most boring and protocol-conscious regional grouping?

I’m not betting on Trump.

Attending an Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting is like trying to walk backwards through molten palm sugar.

After a while, you just give up and go with the flow … even Rodrigo “Dirty Harry” Duterte has had to behave in the face of Asean’s endless, sleep-inducing meetings.

Just over a year ago, I came up with the idea of relaunching my column – the one you’re reading now – as “Ceritalah Asean” (or “Tell Me a Story, Asean”).

The concept – meeting and interviewing ordinary people from across this region of 650 million – seemed really exciting.

However, as I got to work hitting the ground, listening to farmers, migrant workers, tourist guides, day-labourers and schoolteachers from Bassein, to Nam Dinh, Manado and Bacolod, I began to realise that I’d made a little mistake.

Southeast Asia is vibrant, sexy and alive.

Asean – as a supranational organisation – is turgid, pompous and comatose at best.

Essentially, Asean is the antithesis to everything that makes Southeast Asia interesting.

Its streets are raucous. It’s unpredictable.

By comparison, Asean is elitist. It’s most comfortable in luxury hotels, resorts and convention centres. Its meetings are well-choreographed talkfests.

So while I’m still deeply fascinated, indeed in love with our region, its people and their stories, I find it extremely difficult to muster much enthusiasm for rooms full of bureaucrats.

I still think Southeast Asia’s huge, growing economy (which in 2013 had a combined GDP of US$2.4 trillion) – destined to be the fourth-largest in the world by 2050 according to the consultancy McKinsey – has boundless potential.

But I gotta be honest: Asean has no poetry.

Zero. Zilch.

There’s no shared emotional connection – unless you can count durian-eating as a form of bonding.

Even our so-called disagreements – mostly over the South China Sea – have become predictable as China’s geopolitical and economic influence in our region grows.

Indeed, I would recommend any book (and a great many columns) on Asean as a sure-fire cure for insomnia.

More seriously: Asean has not really helped to provide the infrastructure as well as jobs that many of its 650 million people desperately need. That task is still very much on the shoulders of individual nation states.

And it has done even less to protect the most vulnerable of that 650 million (several of whom I encountered via this column) from abuse, exploitation and impunity – particularly the region’s migrant workers.

Again, zero.

This is why I can’t conjure up any excitement for the upcoming gathering in Manila – even though it’s the 50th anniversary and Trump is apparently staying for the whole event.

Yawn.

Given what snore-fests these Asean meetings are – one has a feeling he will regret his last-minute decision to attend the East Asia Summit, where he along with Asian leaders will meet their Asean counterparts.

Quite frankly – it really doesn’t matter, in the grand scheme of things, whether he’s there or not.

Foreign policy pundits will argue that his attendance is to reassure the region that America isn’t “retreating from the Asia-Pacific/the World” – but is this really the case?

The barometer of American (and for that matter, Chinese) power and influence in the region – is hardly dependent on whether its leaders attend a boring round of speeches as well as an awkward “family photo” in the host nation’s traditional garb.

People cry “but it’s the optics.”

Trust me: this is one case where optics really, really does not matter – at least in the long run.

Perhaps it’s time we stop believing that our region’s peace, prosperity and reputation is at stake at every Summit.

But maybe I am being too hard on Asean.

It did, after all, achieve its purpose of keeping Southeast Asia relatively peaceful and neutral in the decades since its formation via the 1967 Bangkok Declaration.

And maybe boring is good – at least with regards to Asean’s diplomatic agenda?

When the grouping was first conceived in the height of the cold war, Southeast Asia was a cauldron with distrust, suspicion and outright violence at every corner – from Vietnam to Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Asean provided a neutral platform to bring states together, to build trust and familiarity.

It’s been a long, arduous process with, arguably, the normalisation of Indonesia and the Indochinese states at the core of its agenda.


The sheer, grinding tedium and rigidity of the Asean process – the communiqués and set-piece speeches – exhausts all our leaders to such an extent that they often don’t have the energy or interest to scheme and plot against one another.

Instead, all they want to do is escape.

And maybe, just maybe, that should be enough for us in the region.

We can, and certainly should, focus on building business-to-business, media-to-media and people-to-people ties regardless of what happens in Asean.

Regional integration – especially in Southeast Asia – must be driven from the ground up.

So Donald, don’t even try to be too clever.

Asean is structured and crafted to defeat and subsume grand-standing and point-scoring.

Well what do you know...turns out the most emotionally (un)connected bunch of elites, striving for the (not so)same goal(s), have the most (un)interesting 'gathering' of some sorts...


Let's be honest. ASEAN meeting (or even ASEAN, in general) isn't a family meeting where warmth and kumbaya can be SEEN through the air. It's not also as interesting and heated as a meeting of hoping and soughting after truce between opposing nations.

It's just a meeting between entities that PRETEND to know each others. It's just...awkward. For better or worse.

 

[NEKONEKO]

Well what do you know...turns out the most emotionally (un)connected bunch of elites, striving for the (not so)same goal(s), have the most (un)interesting 'gathering' of some sorts...

Let's be honest. ASEAN meeting (or even ASEAN, in general) isn't a family meeting where warmth and kumbaya can be SEEN through the air. It's not also as interesting and heated as a meeting of hoping and soughting after truce between opposing nations.

It's just a meeting between entities that PRETEND to know each others. It's just...awkward. For better or worse.

Ay nah bro, ASEAN is interesting and as the second biggest grouping its voice have impact on regional and global issues. No comment about the kumbaya thing, and yes the member are very different from each other.


Asean helps manage tensions in region, say panellists
Asean is a useful tool in managing tensions in the region and must remain central to Singapore's foreign policy.

Panellists at the conference, Singapore Perspectives, organised by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) yesterday underlined the importance of the 10-member regional bloc. "Asean is a vital and irreplaceable means of managing the tensions... and there is no substitute," retired Singapore diplomat Bilahari Kausikan said.

He acknowledged, however, that it is "one tool of many" and has limitations and hence, "not the panacea for all the ills in the world" as well as those in Singapore and the region.

Former foreign minister George Yeo said large communities from various Asean countries reside in Singapore, making the Republic the "most Aseanised country" among its members.

"A strong Asean gives us more room to manoeuvre" even as bigger nations engage in rivalry, he said.

He highlighted the importance of Indonesia taking the lead.

"Without Indonesia, it's very hard for Asean to coalesce a common position. In my years as a trade and foreign minister, I always made it a point of principle to align Singapore's interests with those of Indonesia's," he said.

"I hope in the coming years, we will spend much more time developing our relationship with Indonesia."

Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said Asean, as well as the European Union, are two of the most successful regional organisations in the world but had "different starting bases".

The EU's 28 member states have a lot in common in terms of civilisations, cultures and approach to law as well as trade, a commonality achieved after centuries of wars and conflicts.

Asean members, on the other hand, "recognise they are very different" with various ruling systems from absolute monarchies to military arrangements to varieties of democracies, yet the five founding member states have had "strong leaders who realised it was better to hang together than to hang separately", he said.

"Because of diversity, founders of Asean created this principle that everything will have to be decided by consensus," which has contributed to peace, prosperity and development, among other things, for more than 50 years.

"If you look at the numbers, we are poised for growth. We in the next 20 years we'll be number four in the world after China, US, EU," Dr Balakrishnan said.

Former Indonesian foreign minister Marty Natalegawa urged Asean countries not to be passive in policy response and display a "can-do spirit" and develop instruments to deal not only with the US and China, but other bilateral episodes including those between the US and Russia and China and Japan, and India and China.

Dr Natalegawa praised Singapore's "tremendous leadership" as chairman of the bloc last year.

He said: "All in all, it is a challenging environment, but Asean has in the past, whenever doubt had been suggested of its continued relevance, managed to reinvent itself and prove its relevance."

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/asean-helps-manage-tensions-in-region-say-panellists

 

[UMNOPutra]

Indonesian suicide bombers behind Jolo blasts: Año
ABS-CBN News
Posted at Feb 01 2019 05:10 PM

Manila- Indonesian suicide bombers were behind the twin blasts that rocked a church in Jolo, Sulu last Sunday, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said Friday.

Año made the statement after the military confirmed that suicide bombers were behind the bomb attack that left 22 dead and at least 100 hurt.

He said the bombers were a couple.

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/02/01/...jolo-blasts-ao

 

[katarabhumi]

12 Filipinos, one Malaysian terror suspects nabbed in Sabah crackdown
By Teoh Pei Ying - March 18, 2019 @ 12:37pm

KUALA LUMPUR: The Royal Malaysian Police nabbed 12 Filipinos believed to be members of the outlawed Abu Sayaf Group (ASG), Maute Terrorist Group and Royal Sulu Force (RSF), and a Malaysian.

All 13 were nabbed in a series of crackdowns conducted by Bukit Aman Special Branch Counter Terrorism Division together with the Special Branch, Sabah Police and 69 Commando in a two-day period between March 11 and 12 in Semporna and Tambunan in Sabah.

Inspector General of Police Tan Sri Muhammad Fuzi Harun in a statement today said some of those nabbed were suspected to providing protection to terrorist elements believed to be in hiding in Sabah.

He said in the first crackdown on March 11 saw authorities nab five Filipinos and one Malaysian suspect aged between 40 and 50 in Semporna.

"Four of the suspects are members of the Maute group who were believed to have been involved in the Marawi conflict in Southern Philippines, in 2017.

"They are also involved in providing shelter to terrorist elements of the Maute group as well as terror elements from the Middle East," Fuzi said.

The nation's top cop said another two suspects were suspected to be members of the RSF which was involved in the attacks in Lahad Datu and Semporna in 2013.

"They were also involved in recruiting new RSF members by selling membership cards for the group among Filipinos who had settled down in Sabah.

"The duo fled to Southern Philippines after the RSF lost. In 2018, the two slipped back into Sabah to reactivate the RSF’s activities, he said.

In the second crackdown which also took place on March 11, Fuzi said five Filipinos and one Filipina aged between 23 and 63-years-old were arrested in a raid in Tambunan.

Suspected to be ASG members, the six were involved in the Marawi conflict and slipped into Sabah in 2018 to avoid crackdown by Philippines security forces.

“The five were arrested for providing shelter to terror elements from the ASG and Maute group who are still at large,” he said.

The final arrest in the two-day crackdown saw a Filipino, aged 39, arrested on March 12 in Tambunan for providing shelter to terror elements of the ASG and Maute group who are still at large.

"With the arrest, the Special Branch Counter Terrorism Division is confident of tracking and capturing remaining elements of the ASG and Maute who are suspected of hiding in Sabah, specifically in Sabah," said Fuzi.

He said the suspects were arrested for allegedly committing offences relating to terrorism as provided under Chapter VIA of the Penal Code.

They would be investigated under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012, he added.

https://www.nst.com.my/news/crime-c...aysian-terror-suspects-nabbed-sabah-crackdown



+++

Malaysian terrorist in Jakarta bomb attack says no regrets

ALAYSIAN Taufik Abdul Halim set off a bomb at an Indonesian shopping mall 18 years ago, losing his leg and his freedom as a result, but he is unrepentant of his actions, Benarnews reports.

The bomb, hidden in a Dunkin’ Donuts box, was intended to be detonated at a nearby church but exploded prematurely in Jakarta’s Atrium Plaza mall. It blew off part of Taufik’s right leg, and flying shrapnel injured six other people.

https://www.benarnews.org/english/news/malaysian/Malaysia-militants-02072019172722.html


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[katarabhumi]

Indonesia proposes use of local currencies for internal ASEAN transactions
The Jakarta Post - Wed, April 10, 2019 / 04:57 pm

Bank Indonesia (BI) has proposed the use of local currencies for internal trade transactions within ASEAN countries to reduce dependency on the US dollar.

Currently, Indonesia is cooperating with three ASEAN countries -- Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia -- on the Local Currency Settlement (LCS) to use local currencies for bilateral trade transactions.

The expansion of local currencies use within ASEAN was outlined in a draft of the ASEAN Guiding Principles on the LCS framework that was prepared by BI, which will be discussed in the Working Committee on Capital Account Liberalization later this year.

“If we use local currencies, the transactions in the region will have no significant impact if there is capital outflow from ASEAN countries,” said BI’s international department director, Wahyu Pratomo, in Jakarta on Tuesday.

He added that BI had submitted the draft at the recent ASEAN finance ministers and central bank governors meetings in Chiang Rai, Thailand.

Wahyu said if the 10 ASEAN member countries agreed to the draft later this year, it could be approved during a meeting of governors of ASEAN central banks in Vietnam in April next year. “Indonesia could act as the LCS leader in the region.”

Currently, the use of local currencies in ASEAN countries is still insignificant. The use of the Thai baht for trade transactions between Indonesia and Thailand, for example, was recorded only at US$13 million in the first quarter of 2019 or only 0.01 percent of the total trade between the two countries, which was $2.46 billion in January and February.

Meanwhile, the use of the ringgit in bilateral trade between Indonesia and Malaysia was recorded at $70 million or 0.03 percent of the total trade between both countries, which was recorded at $2.12 billion in January and February. (bbn)

https://www.thejakartapost.com/news...rrencies-for-internal-asean-transactions.html

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[katarabhumi]

Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines to hold joint exercise next month
Kyodo News - Posted at Jun 12 2019 11:35 PM

Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines have agreed on holding a planned joint land patrol exercise next month aimed at tackling security challenges in the waters between Borneo and the southern Philippines, an Indonesian Cabinet minister said Wednesday.

Indonesian Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu said the one-month, trilateral exercise would be held in the Indonesian town of Tarakan in East Kalimantan Province, the Indonesian part of Borneo island, as the three Southeast Asian countries band together against Islamist militancy.

Asked whether the exercise will be followed by the formation of a joint patrol force comprised of three countries' militaries, Ryamizard replied, "We'll do the exercise first and let's see what happens."

Currently, the three countries have maritime command centers in various locations around the region that serve as centers of information and intelligence sharing.

Since early 2017, dozens of Indonesians and Malaysians have been abducted in the Sulu Sea, a body of water in the southwestern area of the Philippines, by armed men linked to the notoriously violent Abu Sayyaf rebel group.

Abu Sayyaf advocates an independent Islamic state comprising part of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. In addition to kidnappings-for-ransom, it has engaged in bombings, assassinations and extortion, making it one of the most serious security threats faced by the Philippines.

https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/0...philippines-to-hold-joint-exercise-next-month

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[Reashot Xigwin]

Indonesian, Malaysian and Philippine Troops to Train for Possible Regional Ground Force

Ismira Lutfia Tisnadibrata
Jakarta
2019-06-12

View attachment 565060
Maj. Gen. Sisriadi, spokesman for the Indonesian military, answers during an event in Jakarta, June 12, 2019.
Courtesy of TNI media and information bureau

After starting coordinated air and sea patrols in recent years, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines will launch joint ground exercises in August, in a counter-terrorism initiative that could see a regional force deployed in the southern Philippines one day, Indonesian officials said Wednesday.

The Indomalphi 2019 exercise will take place on Tarakan island in Indonesia’s North Kalimantan province and include trainings on shooting techniques and close-range combat, Indonesian military spokesman Maj. Gen. Sisriadi told BenarNews.

“Each country is expected to deploy a company of troops and five observers,” Sisraidi said Wednesday, referring to a military unit that typically consists of 80 to 150 soldiers and is usually commanded by a major or a captain.

“The exercise is aimed at improving joint operation capabilities in the land border areas, as part of efforts to anticipate transboundary crime and to create a deterrent effect to terrorism activities in border areas,” he said.

Delegations from the three Southeast Asian nations were attending a two-day meeting in Bali, starting Wednesday, to discuss a formal agreement on the trilateral land exercise, he said.

Ryamizard Ryacudu, Indonesia’s defense minister, said the monthlong exercise could potentially lead to the deployment of joint forces in the southern Philippines, which is still grappling with Islamic State-linked militants in remote areas of the Mindanao region.

“We are going to deal with [a] third-generation of terrorists, those who fought in the Middle East but have returned,” Ryamizard said in a news conference Wednesday. “Most of them are in Indonesia and the Philippines, and they are just traversing through Malaysia.”

He said the exercise would familiarize soldiers with field terrain.

“We need to establish grounds first with the officials and lawmakers,” he said. “We can’t just do that.”

The deployment of foreign troops in the southern Philippines would first require support from Filipino lawmakers and officials.

The 1987 Philippine Constitution specifies that “foreign military bases, troops, or facilities shall not be allowed in the Philippines except under a treaty duly concurred in by the Senate and, when the Congress so requires, ratified by a majority of the votes cast by the people in a national referendum held for that purpose, and recognized as a treaty by the other contracting State.”

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian officials declined to answer questions from BenarNews. Meanwhile, defense officials in Manila were not immediately available for comment because the Philippines was observing its Independence Day, a national holiday, on Wednesday.

Earlier this month, Ryamizard met with his Malaysian and Filipino counterparts on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual regional security meeting in Singapore, during which “they agreed to form a land [force] to combat terrorism,” Brig. Gen. Totok Sugiharto, the Indonesian Defense Ministry’s spokesman, told BenarNews.

“This is an escalated cooperation from the previous coordinated patrols to combat terrorism in the Philippines’ Sulu Sea,” Totok said, adding that during the exercise, the three nations would also be exchanging intelligence information about militants.

A regional military force would require “political decisions” from leaders of the three nations, a high-ranking defense ministry official told BenarNews, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“The process would not be simple,” he said. “That is why we call the maritime and air patrols coordinated patrols, instead of joint patrols, and we focus on securing the borders between the three countries.”

Looking to add joint ground patrols

The three nations began trilateral patrols in June 2017 after pro-IS militants launched a siege in the southern Philippine city of Marawi. Five months of fighting ended in October 2017 and killed at least 1,200 people, mostly militants, including the acknowledged Philippine IS leader, Isnilon Hapilon.

During his speech at this year's Shangri-La Dialogue on June 2, Ryamizard said Indonesia has proposed to conduct a coordinated patrol, which he conveyed in the same forum in 2015.

He indicated in the 2018 dialogue that the three neighboring countries were looking to add joint ground patrols to existing trilateral air and sea patrols targeting pro-IS militants in the region.

Indonesia also initiated the Our Eyes intelligence sharing platform, which ASEAN countries agreed in Singapore last year.

“The maritime, air and land military cooperation to anticipate ISIS fighters returnees from the Middle East are the implementation of the ‘Our Eyes’ initiative. Currently the trilateral cooperation is entering the phase for a joint [ground] exercise, which will be held in Tarakan, North Kalimantan after the troops held their own exercises in their respective countries,” Ryamizard said in his speech in Singapore, using another acronym for IS.

The Marawi fighting emboldened other Southeast Asian terror cells aligned with the Syria- and Iraq-based IS, according to analysts.

Among the 31,500 foreign fighters who had joined IS in Syria, about 800 came from Asia, including 400 from Indonesia, the largest Muslim-majority country, Ryamizard said on June 2, 2018, citing intelligence data from his government.

The three Southeast Asian nations were taking the security preparations just months after the United States and its allies announced the territorial defeat of the so-called Islamic State, which once controlled wide swaths of Iraq and Syria.

With the fall of the IS “caliphate” in Syria, officials of the Syrian Democratic Forces estimate that more than 12,000 foreign women and children are being held in camps in Syria alone, and about 1,000 foreign fighters are being held in the country’s prisons.

Many governments fear that welcoming back their battle-hardened citizens who fought for IS could pose a security threat.

During the battle of Marawi, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte placed the entire southern region of Mindanao under martial law, in a bid to solve the biggest security crisis to hit the country in recent memory. But analysts have warned that former IS fighters could still penetrate the porous borders of the southern Philippines through Malaysia and across the Sulu Sea.

Duterte had publicly admitted that security forces may have underestimated the militants’ firepower, but relented to his defense officials who had asked for crucial intelligence help from the United States, the country's oldest military ally that he had earlier lambasted as he moved for closer ties instead with China and Russia.

A trilateral agreement on a possible regional military force carries a “psychological dimension” that could block “any trans-boundary security disturbance,” Mufti Makarim, an Indonesian military and security observer, told BenarNews.

“This agreement doesn’t mean that each country’s force can enter another country,” he said, “but it is more like they can coordinate when they conduct border patrols in their respective territories, so each country is aware that their neighbors are taking the same measures and are doing what is necessary to secure the borders.”

https://www.benarnews.org/english/news/indonesian/indonesia-militants-06122019153406.html