Afghanistan: the consequences of the Taliban victory for Southeast Asia
Audio 02:30
A Taliban fighter holds his weapon under Taliban flags hung in a street in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, August 30, 2021. © AP / Khwaja Tawfiq Sediqi
By: Gabrielle Maréchaux Follow
7 mins
In Southeast Asia, the impact of the Taliban victory takes a worrying turn.
Used to boost the morale of certain jihadist groups, the Taliban model also seems to strengthen their motivation to establish a caliphate.
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From our correspondent in Kuala Lumpur,
When the young Nasir Abas was sent to Afghanistan in 1987 by Abu Bakar Bashir, the future leader of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, it was with the promise of defending the mujahedin against the Russian invasion.
But arrived there, the teenager quickly became disillusioned.
I was so frustrated because I was not told that in Afghanistan I would only go to their military academy.
I had just dropped out of school, I wanted to fight!
But in fact I went back to another school where I learned everything about weaponry, how to shoot, but also how to make weapons, how to make bombs, the chemistry necessary for that.
In fact, Abu Bakar Bashir's primary mission was to train people there and then bring this know-how back to Indonesia.
Links that remain important
And this is what Nasir Abas will do next by unknowingly training the future bombers of the attacks in Bali, Jakarta or Makassar.
Today, the man is 52 years old and has changed sides, he fights against radicalization and works with the authorities.
But the ties between groups supporting al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan remain important, he said.
"
Jemaah Islamiyah is always in admiration of what they learned in Afghanistan, and it is always this know-how that is taught, replicated ...
", underlines Nasir Aba.
Trying to bring Taliban to Southeast Asia
Since the victory of the Taliban, the morale of this group which wants to establish a caliphate in Indonesia has been high, and the former jihadist confirms their pressing desire to return to Afghanistan, or failing that, to bring in the Taliban to learn from them. 'them.
“
They place a lot of hope in the Taliban.
Thank God, because of the pandemic, the borders of different countries are very guarded and difficult to cross,
”he said.
But it's not just Jemaah Islamiyah trying to establish links with Afghanistan.
On the side of Daesh sympathizers, admiration for their Afghan counterparts has already motivated some to leave, recalls Sana Jaffrey of the Institute of Policy Analysis of Conflict.
The departures started when it became impossible to go to Syria.
There is a priori around 23 Indonesians.
Seven of them were put in jail because they were caught crossing the border between Iran and Afghanistan.
Currently, it is not known whether they were released by the Taliban, whether they are still in prison or elsewhere.
Some cautious supporters
Politically, Southeast Asia has seen some groups congratulate the Taliban on their victory.
Among them, the Malaysian Islamic Party, today in the ruling coalition according to the analysis of researcher Ahmad el-Muhammady.
“
It is a support that remains cautious, again.
They congratulate the Taliban by assuring that they have liberated the country from American occupation, that they seem to have learned from their mistakes, that they have changed and that our perception of them must therefore also change.
"
This willingness to believe in this change is shared beyond the Islamic Party.
A member of another party in power thus proposed to go to Afghanistan to help the Taliban to be inspired by Malaysia in matters of women's rights.
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