Jumbo in the Jungle

Since Malaysian Airlines
flight 370 (MH370) disappeared on March 8 on its way from Kuala Lumpur to
Beijing, commentators have worried that it could be the result of terrorism. Two
passengers had boarded the plane using passports stolen in Thailand, and of the 153 Chinese passengers
aboard the flight, one was reportedly of Uighur
ethnicity -- a Muslim minority heavily concentrated in northwest China's
troubled region of Xinjiang. The flight is still missing; much remains unknown
and many of the details circulating, including those hinting at terrorist involvement, are unconfirmed or
incorrect. But Southeast Asia, with its often poorly managed borders and
extensive smuggling networks -- for weapons, drugs, contraband, and people -- has
long concerned foreign governments and international terrorism experts.

The ease of illicit
cross-border travel in Southeast Asia helped make the region a second front in George W. Bush's War on Terror in the early
2000s. Back then, Jemaah Islamiyah
(JI), a terrorist group with links to al Qaeda, was the poster child of a transnational
extremist threat in Southeast Asia. Established in 1993, JI eventually organized
terror cells in five countries across the region, with Malaysia serving as a
safe haven for the organization's two Indonesian founders. JI, whose name means
"Islamic Congregation," became notorious after organizing the 2002 nightclub
bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali, which killed 202 people, nearly half of whom were Australians,
and injured 240. (Before that, authorities had foiled an
attempt to bomb embassies in Singapore in 2001 using explosives smuggled
through the Philippines.) Bali bombing mastermind Riduan
Isamuddin, now detained at Guantanamo
Bay, moved between safe-houses across maritime and mainland Southeast Asia
before his 2003 arrest
in Thailand.

In part because of the threat
from JI and other extremist groups, many Southeast Asian nations have
strengthened security at established border crossings and airports, and
tightened visa and customs procedures. Steady pressure from foreign governments
and intelligence agencies, including the United States, to mitigate the threat
of terrorism in Southeast Asia also helped to spur improvements. There is now little credible evidence
that the region remains a haven for international terrorists, who can much more
easily operate out of countries in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

But the large, often remote
maritime and land borders between Southeast Asian nations remain relatively
porous and are exploited by insurgent groups with a domestic focus. Indonesia,
Myanmar, the Philippines and Thailand all face domestic armed threats facilitated
by nationals working across the border. Southern Thai insurgents, including the
Patani United Liberation Organization, the National Revolutionary Front, and
other ethnic-Malay separatist groups, run extensive smuggling networks into
Malaysia. Armed forces along Myanmar's frontiers, such as the Karen National
Liberation Army and the Kachin Independence Army, regular cross international
borders for safe haven and supplies, though some also smuggle drugs and weapons
across borders. And the nexus between the southern Philippines' Sulu
Archipelago and the island of Borneo, split primarily between Malaysia and
Indonesia, is a hotbed for trafficking in weapons and persons, as well as an
area of contestation among governments, criminal organizations, and extremist
groups.

Southeast Asia's insecure
borders do not just threaten the region's own prosperity, but also hinder
efforts at stability in neighboring countries. Separatists from the Indian
province of Nagaland have long used bases over the border in Myanmar for
sanctuary and support. Bangladesh, meanwhile, houses
more than 200,000 Rohingya, a Muslim minority who have fled violence and persecution
in neighboring Myanmar. Bangladesh could face a destabilizing
flood of refugees should that violence grow worse.

Perhaps the biggest regional
threat is that Southeast Asia could be used as a staging area for extremists
attacking China. There is evidence that the decades-old resistance to China's
heavy-handed rule in Xinjiang, which has traditionally been confined to the
region itself, might be morphing into an extremist threat aimed at China as a
whole. Beijing accused Uighur radicals of committing an Oct. 2013
vehicle attack on Beijing's Tiananmen Square, the symbolic center of the
capital, and of committing a gruesome knife attack in the southwestern city
of Kunming on March 1 that killed 29 people and injured more than 140. Kunming is the capital of
Yunnan province, which borders Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar, and Dru Gladney, an expert
on Western China at Pomona College, told
the Telegraph that the attackers may
have been influenced by Southeast Asian groups.

Malaysia's borders are
relatively secure. But Kuala Lumpur still has trouble controlling illicit
traffic of goods, people, and occasionally armed groups. The disappearance of MH370 may not have been caused by a terrorist
act, but the speculation that has erupted serves as a reminder that Southeast
Asian borders are extremely porous, often poorly managed, and that smuggling
networks remain well and alive throughout much of the region.

MOHD RASFAN/AFP/Getty Images

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