EDITORIAL Need for action at Phuket meet

The Asean foreign ministers who met yesterday in Phuket properly updated their already busy agenda to elevate the murderous suicide bombings in Jakarta to the top of the discussion list. Their counterparts from 17 other countries due in the southern resort by tomorrow are to do the same. The influenza outbreak is a threat to life, but can be pushed back and defeated by medical science. Burmese violence and North Korean nuclear weapons are challenges best met with rational diplomacy. But random and bloody terrorist attacks require a wide range of responses by communities, nations and across international borders.

The twin explosions that broke the Sabbath peace at two Jakarta luxury hotels last Friday were carefully plotted. They shattered lives and property, but they also shattered the hope and occasional pretence that terrorism was no longer a threat. Anti-terrorist operations have often been successful. But realists have known, and the cynics must now accept, that the successes of the regional and world fight against terrorism have only begun to make progress.

Police in Indonesia and their foreign allies agree that the attacks last Friday were probably the work of followers of Jemaah Islamiyah. This regional arm of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda group has been at the forefront of both local and cross-border attacks for more than a decade. In addition to domestic bombing attacks, mostly against Christians in Indonesia, JI was behind the October 2002, firebombing in Bali which killed more than 200 people. It carried out bombings in Jakarta and upcountry Indonesia, and in Manila and the rural Philippines. JI helped the logistics planning for the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

It plotted major attacks in Singapore and in Bangkok. These and other foiled JI conspiracies showed that the group was far from invincible. The Philippine army and Indonesian police, with massive help from allies around the world, broke up the main JI and Abu Sayyaf gangs with ties to al-Qaeda. One of the key anti-terrorism victories was in Ayutthaya, when a US-Thai joint operation captured JI operations chief and al-Qaeda contact Hambali, who remains imprisoned at the US-run Guantanamo facility in Cuba.

Last week's suicide bombings in Jakarta do not mean terrorism will prevail. At the same time, the outstanding victories against al-Qaeda, JI, Abu Sayyaf and other murderous gangs do not ensure victory. Terrorism is resilient. In Indonesia, the "school for violence" run by the Islamist apologist Abu Bakar Bashir justifies killings like those of six innocent Indonesians and foreigners. Such centres of extremism even attempt to sanctify the suicides, although they are strictly forbidden by the Koran, as is the taking of innocent life.

Recruiters and talent scouts like Bashir and his small band of followers continue to find weak and lonely young men and women, and brainwash them into warped acts, supposedly for their religion. As a recent, controversial report showed, such men continue to recruit young Thais for similar purposes. It will take more and stronger police work and intelligence activities to root out such evil men, and to remove them from society.

The task is sometimes local, as for example in southern Thailand, where religious communities must be more vigilant against terrorist recruitment. But more than that, terrorism is a matter of international crime. The foreign ministers meeting in Phuket this week have an obligation to upgrade their attempts to stop terrorism through stronger international cooperation.