Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of Al-Qaeda's Newest Center of Operations in Southeast Asia

by Maria Ressa

For anyone wishing to understand the next, post-9/11 generation of al-Qaeda planning, leadership, and tactics, there is only one place to Southeast Asia. In fact, such countries as the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia have been crucial nodes in the al-Qaeda network since long before the strikes on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, but when the allies overran Afghanistan, the new camps in Southeast Asia became the key training grounds for the future. It is in the Muslim strongholds in the Philippines and Indonesia that the next generation of al-Qaeda can be found. In this powerful, eye-opening work, Maria Ressa casts the most illuminating light ever on this fascinating but little-known "terrorist HQ." Every major al-Qaeda attack since 1993 has had a connection to the Philippines, and Maria Ressa, CNN's lead investigative reporter for Asia and a Filipino-American who has lived in the region since 1986, has broken story after story about them. From the early, failed attempts to assassinate Pope John Paul II and Bill Clinton to the planning of the 9/11 strikes and the "48 Hours of Terror," in which eleven American jetliners were to be blown up over the Pacific, she has interviewed the terrorists, their neighbors and families, and the investigators from six different countries who have tracked them down. After the Bali bombing, al-Qaeda's worst strike since 9/11, which killed more than two hundred, Ressa broke major revelations about how it was planned, why it was a Plan B substitute for an even more ambitious scheme aimed at Singapore, and why the suicide bomber recruited to deliver the explosives almost caused the whole plan to fall apart when he admitted he could barely drive a car. Above all, Ressa has seen how al-Qaeda's tactics are shifting under the pressures of the war on terror. Rather than depending upon its own core membership (estimated at three to four thousand at its peak), the network is now enmeshing itself in local conflicts, co-opting Muslim independence movements wherever they can be found, and helping local "revolutionaries" to fund, plan, and execute sinister attacks against their neighbors and the West. If history is any guide, al-Qaeda revisits its plans over and over until they can succeed -- and many of those plans have already been discovered and are here revealed, thanks to classified investigative documents uncovered by Ressa.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Terrorism

272 pages, Hardcover

First published December 2, 2003

About the author

Maria Angelita Ressa is a Filipino American journalist and author, the co-founder and CEO of Rappler, and the first independent Filipino Nobel laureate. She previously spent nearly two decades working as a lead investigative reporter in Southeast Asia for CNN.

In 2020, she was convicted of cyberlibel by the Philippine government under the controversial Philippine Anti-Cybercrime law, a move condemned by human rights groups and journalists as an attack on press freedom.

Ressa was awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Dmitry Muratov for “their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace."

Reviews

[Will Byrnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ressa was a Jakarta Bureau Chief for CNN. A Philippine native she made Southeast Asia her beat, with particular emphasis on Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. While this may not be the best-written book on the subject of the spread of Al-Qaeda, it does a lot to fill in the gaps of information re terrorism in those parts of the world. There is a surfeit of data on the names of the participants, to the degree that one despairs of ever keeping them straight. Of great interest is her tale of Al-Quaeda in the Philippines. It informs ones view of national politics in light of the recent kidnapping of a Filipino in Iraq, and the government’s willingness to abort their Iraq mission in return for the captive. There is much going on there, and because the government has proven too corrupt or too politically unwilling to really deal with the problem they have in effect sanctioned it. There will be problems aplenty in that nation for decades in the absence of a change in approach. Also of great interest was the point that cells are allowed to operate freely by countries that are not targeted. For example, Malaysia tolerated terrorist activity as long as it was directed at Indonesia and not at itself. It is also clear that because of the unwillingness of intelligence services to share information, many terrorist acts were carried out that might have been prevented. Internal corruption is also a very large factor in allowing even jailed terrorists to get away. There is also an intriguing section on how one of the Philippine groups went from being islamically motivated to being pretty simply a criminal enterprise, engaged in kidnapping as a regular source of revenue.

[Wayland Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very well researched, if somewhat frightening, book.

It shows the development of Al-Qeda in southeast Asia, especially in the Phillipines and Indonesia. Al-Qeda grows, in part, because of bribes, corruption, and politics, and Miss Ressa traces it out in clear detail. I found this very informative, and a good read.

[Mahyudin]

I own a copy.

[Jill Butler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly prescient. Even as I read this fascinating and insightful book I had better understanding of current events and how many threads tie our world together. Looking forward to her newest book, "From bin Laden to Facebook, 10 Days of Abduction, 10 days of Terrorism."

[Donni · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the go to book to understand JI and Abu Sayaf.