Extremists use Internet to raise funds

KUALA LUMPUR - Southeast Asian extremist groups have turned to the Internet

to recruit people and raise funds but they have not yet been able to mount cyber

attacks, a security expert said on Monday.

Rohan Gunaratna, head of the political violence and terrorism centre at

Singapore's Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, said regional militant

network Jemaah Islamiah (JI) used Internet extensively to spread its propaganda.

"It will take a very long time for Southeast Asian groups to develop the

capability to attack the Internet," he said. "Instead of attacking the

Internet, they are using the Internet."

He was in Malaysia to address Southeast Asian security officials on

U.S.-backed training on counter-terrorism, including cyber-terrorism and suicide

bombing.

A Malaysian counter-terrorism official told the meeting that the threat from

cyber attacks in the region was real but offered no information of any specific

threat.

"The threat is real. It's not the question of how or what, but it is

only of when," said Yean Yoke Heng, deputy head of the Malaysian-based

South East Asia Regional Centre for Counter Terrorism.

"We need a better coordination ... to be better prepared to face any

cyber attacks by hackers, by terrorist groups," he said.

Malaysia announced recently that it would set up a centre that provides an

emergency response to cyber attacks on the economy or trading system of any

country.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said companies such as Symantec

Corporation of the United States, Japan's Trend Micro and Russia's Kapersky Lab

have agreed to be key partners.

Gunaratna, who has written books on al Qaeda and JI, played down the

possibility of such attacks by regional militant groups.

"There are no groups in Southeast Asia that are capable of attacking the

Internet at this point of time," he told reporters.

"But there are a number of terrorist groups that are using the Internet

very effectively to distribute propaganda, to recruit, to raise funds and to

coordinate terrorist attacks," he said.

They include JI, al Qaeda's franchise in Southeast Asia, he said.

Noordin Mohammad Top, a Malaysian suspected of masterminding bombings on the

Indonesian holiday island of Bali last year, is currently leading JI's

operations.