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Southeast Asia. The raw number of users on these websites is comparatively
small in relation to the overall number of Muslims in the region. Yet a careful
review of the activity on some of these websites suggests that those who frequent
them are dedicated, if not fanatical, in their beliefs.
In some cases, the jihadist websites directed at Muslims in Southeast Asia serve
as an alternative avenue for participation in the global jihadist movement, short
of physical violence. In other cases, the sites may offer jihadist terrorist groups in
the region an increasingly viable avenue to sustain their movements in an
environment of heightened security. Finally, because the websites constantly
seek to extend the sphere of potential new recruits and ideological converts, their
growth in the region helps stoke the fire of jihadist ideological enlistment by
reinforcing a core set of grievances and offering a violent set of solutions. In
short, the websites can help propel ideological followers of jihadism closer to
action.
This chapter provides an introduction to the topic of global jihadist internet
activity in Southeast Asia. 2 Specifically, it concentrates on identifying the major
2
Notably, no internet monitoring organizations in the West focus on Southeast Asian jihadist
websites exclusively and few even cover those websites in their reporting. The leading work in
this area has been done by Sydney Jones at the International Crisis Group. For a list of Sidney
Jones’s work, see her biography page on the International Crisis Group homepage:
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=1349&l=1. Her most directly relevant article on
the transmission of global jihadist literature into the Southeast Asian context is: Sidney Jones,
“International Influences on Jihadist Movements in Indonesia,” International Crisis Group (May
2006). Jones has pioneered new ground by examining Jemaah Islammiyyah websites vis-à-vis more
mainstream Arabic-language jihadist forums. She found extensive coverage by these Southeast
Asian sites of classically Arabic jihadist figures, including the preeminent Jordanian jihadist
cleric, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi; the legendary founder of al-Qa’ida, Abdullah Azzam; and
the early jihadist instigator and author, Sayyid Qutb. One good indication of Jones’ authority in
this field is the fact that Ar-Rahmah recently issued an attack-piece against her. The article, posted
on the Ar-Rahmah website, mocked her, called her a spy, and criticized her knowledge of the
Indonesian jihadist movement. Ar-Rahmah, “Books Written by Mujahid Martyr Trio ‘Selling Like
Hotcakes,’ Sydney Jones is Furious,”16 March 2009,
http://www.arrahmah.com/index.php/news/read/3641/buku-goresan-pena-trio-mujahid-larismanis-sidney-jones-sewot.
The reason that Jones likely angers Ar-Rahmah so much is that her
work makes the extent to which Indonesians jihadists use their websites to distribute the writings
of their Arab counterparts clearer than others had to date. And perhaps more importantly, she
identified that even though the writings of Arabic language jihadist scholars are available to
anyone who wants to and can read them, local factors will tend to determine how those texts are
used. In other words, bringing Arabic texts into the Southeast Asian region requires local
expertise to identify, translate, and contextualize the works.
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