03/02/2002
EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-09737

SAFEGUARDING ASIA

No one should underestimate the difficulty of the worldwide campaign against terrorism. But terrorism can be defeated. That is being done in Afghanistan, where the al-Qaida network had its headquarters.

The U.S.-led coalition has succeeded in killing, capturing, or sending into hiding many of the terrorists there. The key to their defeat is relentless pressure against terrorists and their supporters, conducted with an unprecedented degree of international cooperation.

The military campaign in Afghanistan is just one part of the global war against terrorism. Other regions also face terrorist threats. One is the Asia-Pacific, which terrorists looking for new homes will increasingly find a very unfriendly place.

This requires, in the words of Admiral Dennis Blair, "a sustained, unprecedented, relentless, cooperative effort among all the countries in the region against the common threat." There have already been dramatic results. They include the arrest of terrorists in Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

These terrorists reportedly had ties to al-Qaida and were working on plans to attack American ships, embassies, and other Western interests in Asia. "These arrests," said Admiral Blair, "were due not simply to good intelligence and law enforcement work by the countries involved, but also to exchanges of intelligence, and coordination of actions by the governments concerned."

The U-S is providing military training and assistance to the Philippines to help in its war against the Abu Sayyaf Group, a terrorist Muslim separatist organization that has had links to al-Qaida. This group has taken many hostages, and brutally mutilated and murdered defenseless civilians.

Since September 11^th, there have been successes against the worldwide terrorist networks. There will be more to come.