Jemaah Islamiyah Remains Active and Deadly

Abstract

Southeast Asia’s largest and most deadly militant Islamic terrorist network, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), is at a crossroads in its existence amid ongoing counterterrorism pressure, but continues to pose a serious threat to Western and regional interests.¹ Ongoing counterterrorism measures in the past six years have certainly forced JI to adapt, but it remains active and deadly. JI operates primarily out of Indonesia, a country of critical economic and strategic importance and the world’s most populated Muslim country with over 194 million followers of Islam.² JI is the vanguard of radical Islam in Southeast Asia and preys upon the region’s many impoverished and underemployed young people who already have a 66 percent unfavorable opinion of the U.S. government and are easy targets for jihadist recruiters.³ In addition, JI exploits the region’s vast geography that stretches over 3,200 miles and includes more than 13,000 islands, many of which are ungoverned and ideal as terrorist safe havens.⁴