Today's NYT has an op-ed about the dangers of piracy on the high seas. It's focused on the potential for terrorists to wreak havoc by taking over a ship in one of the world's choke points such as the Malacca Strait, which connects the Indian and Pacific Oceans and is at one-point just one-mile wide. It's written by John Burnett, author of Dangerous Waters: Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas, and notes:
Despite the global decline in the number of reported attacks (many
experts feel that there are hundreds more each year that go
unreported), the number of attacks in the Malacca Strait increased last
year to 37 from 28 in 2003. And, while many raids are likely carried
out by crime syndicates, there is evidence that many have been the work
of the Free Aceh Movement of northern Sumatra, an Islamist separatist
organization that has been fighting to gain independence from Indonesia
since 1976. While the United States does not officially call the group
a terrorist organization, the Indonesian government does. And many
terrorism experts cite its links to Jemaah Islamiyah, the Islamist
group suspected in the Bali nightclub bombings of 2003, and to Al Qaeda.
Here's the thing: Burnett doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. The Free Aceh Movement, or GAM, is nationalist. No doubt GAMs hands are dirty; I've heard reports that they shaken down tsunami relief organizations. But that doesn't make them al-Qaida loving jihadists. The U.S. hasn't ID'd them as a terrorist group because they're not.
GAM is in peace talks with the Indonesian government. In fact, the group's spokesman asserted today that GAM isn't even seeking independence, it just wants 'autonomy. ' From al-Jazeera:
"The
conflict cannot be solved like that and we have to come to terms with
that," Free Aceh Movement (GAM) spokesman Bakhtiar Abd Allah said on
Monday when asked if the goal of full independence had been abandoned
in the interest of achieving greater autonomy.
"That (self-government) is the main thing on the table," he said in Helsinki
where peace talks with the Jakarta
government were in their second day. "Of course, in the negotiations we go with the tangible things that are on the table."
That sound like jihadists to you?