Korea grapples with terrorism woes at home, abroad

Mustafa Alani, a senior advisor at the Gulf Research Institute in Saudi Arabia, at Lotte Hotel in Seoul / Korea Times

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Korea had long been considered free of terrorist attacks, until recently, when security threats against Koreans at home and abroad, like the bomb hoax at Incheon airport and various armed attacks in Southeast Asia have put law enforcement officials on alert.

According to experts, the rise of the extremist group Islamic State (IS) in the region exposes Koreans living or traveling there to terrorist attacks.

Mustafa Alani, a senior advisor at the Gulf Research Institute in Saudi Arabia, said the recent attacks in various parts of the world may stem from the uncontrolled anger of some minorities who felt they were discriminated against by their society.

“Most of the attackers in Paris were quoted as saying they engaged in terrorist attacks because they were not treated well in France,” he said. “They thought they were second-class citizens and revolted to punish the society.”

Alani, a counter-terrorism expert who was born in Iraq and educated in the United Kingdom, said respect for diversity and affirmative action for underprivileged people can help prevent homegrown terrorism in Korea.

The recent bomb hoax at the Incheon International Airport suggests the radicalization of some marginalized people, who are expressing their frustration about and fighting against society’s discrimination, at the expense of others’ lives.

A 35-old unemployed man was arrested on Feb. 3 by the police for leaving a box they initially thought had explosives, at a rest room at the airport on Jan.29. The box contained a canister of butane gas, a bottle of water, batteries and banana peels and had an Arabic message that read, “This is the last warning. God will punish.”

The man, who has a wife and a child, said he made the box based on what he had seen in a movie. The police quoted him as saying he was upset at the society for allowing him to remain jobless even after finishing a graduate program following his bachelor’s degree in music. “I was angry because I was unemployed. I needed money (to support my family),” he said.

Lee Sue-jung, a professor of criminology at Kyonggi University, said the bomb hoax raises two unanswered issues: whether or not the man had intended to build a bomb to terrorize others and whether his making of the box and putting it at the airport constitute an act of terrorism.

“Based on what’s inside the box, including banana peels, I personally believe he didn’t intend to build an explosive,” she said. “We’ll see how the court rules regarding the matter.”

However, Lee said what the 35-year-old did was a terrorist act. “He did that to terrorize the public and cause fear,” she said. “But the tricky thing is that we don’t have a terrorism act that defines terrorism or terrorist acts and how violators will be punished. So chances are high that he won’t be punished because of an act of terrorism.”

Persistent terrorist attacks in Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines and Indonesia, meanwhile, pose a grave threat to the safety of Korean nationals or tourists there. According to media reports, over 30 extremist groups in Southeast Asia have pledged their allegiance to IS and hundreds of Indonesians have gone to Syria and Iraq to live in IS territory and support its cause.

A recent media report about the possible establishment of an IS branch in Southeast Asia suggests the terrorist group’s growing influence in the region. In an op-ed piece for The Strait Times published in January, Rohan Gunaratna, a professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, wrote that IS was looking to establish a foothold in Southeast Asia and mentioned the Philippines and Indonesia as possible locations.

IS foothold in Asia

“IS is determined to declare at least one province in Asia in 2016. An IS foothold will present far-reaching security implications for the stability and prosperity for a rising Asia,” he wrote. The terrorism expert predicted that of the two countries, the Philippines is more likely to be the main candidate for an IS branch in Southeast Asia.

His remarks came months after Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong made similar comments last year during the Shangri-La Dialogue that IS could establish a base somewhere in Southeast Asia.

Alani said it’s easier for IS than al-Qaida to create a local branch in the region.

“IS will probably send one or two of its own people to teach local people how to conduct explosion or other terrorist activities. Al-Qaida has sent teams to establish cells or local branches in foreign countries, but this is not the case for IS,” he said. “The local fighters are semi- or fully independent from IS, but they conduct attacks in the name of IS, which in turn serves the interest of IS.”

If the IS Southeast Asian branch is established in the Philippines, which has a history of Muslim rebellions, or in another country, as some experts predicted, Koreans will inevitably be exposed to more terrorist attacks there.

Dozens of Koreans have been kidnapped or victimized by extremist groups in the Philippines since 2010. In November, a 74-year-old Korean man identified only by his last name, Hong, was found dead on the street in the southern region of Mindanao. He was kidnapped by the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf, a name that means “Bearer of the Sword,” in January after he visited his son living there. Before his body was discovered, the armed group had demanded that a 500-million-peso ransom from his family in return for his release.

Abu Sayyaf is a Muslim separatist group based in Mindanao, which is home to many Muslims. Labeled as a terrorist group, it is small but very active, financing its operations primarily through violent activities such as robbery, piracy and kidnapping of foreigners. The Moro National Liberation Front, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the New People’s Army are three other insurgent groups in the country.

Hong was one of the 10 Koreans who were victimized by armed groups in the Philippines last year. Recently, the Philippines has emerged as a dangerous tourist destination for Koreans because 40 percent of the Koreans murdered or victimized by armed groups overseas happened there. Nearly 90,000 Koreans live in the Philippines, and over 1.2 million Koreans visit the country annually.

Security worries in Korea might also have implications for the many Southeast Asian migrant workers in the country, including some 51,000 Filipinos who work in its manufacturing and service sectors.

The National Police Agency’s arrest of an undocumented Indonesian worker in November has raised the possibility of terrorists infiltrating Korea in the guise of migrant workers. According to the investigators, the unnamed 32-year-old Indonesian is a follower of Syria-based terrorist group al-Nusra, which was created by IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Indonesian has sent nearly $2,000 to the organization since he entered Korea with a fake passport. He has also posted messages justifying al-Nusra’s terrorist activities in Syria on social media.

Although Korea has not been targeted by IS, Alani said there is good reason for the country to better prepare for counter-terrorism. He said IS is a new creature that is very different from al-Qaida and has followers from all around the world.

“IS was able to recruit fighters from all around the world. Al-Qaida has done it but not to the same degree,” he said. “IS is more international in terms of its attacks, as it has already hit France, Africa and other countries.”

Alani came to Korea for the 2nd Korea-EU International Conference on the Middle East and North Africa hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. During the two-day seminar held on Feb. 2 and 3, experts from Yemen, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel and other countries presented their ideas about what’s going on in the region since the nuclear-related sanctions against Iran were lifted and how the Saudi-Iran rivalry created tensions in the Gulf region.

Some experts put forth a regional security mechanism where all involved countries can join to ease tensions with the post-sanction Iran.