SINGAPORE, May 31: Muslim extremists were plotting to overthrow the governments of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore to set up an Asian Islamic state, Singapore’s Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew said on Friday.

In a speech at the opening of an Asian security conference, Lee focused on the growing threat of terrorist groups which have “hijacked Islam as their driving force and have given it a virulent twist”.

The immediate threat to the region came from terrorist groups, and the stability of Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation and home to a nest of hardliners, was crucial to the future of East Asia, he said.

Guerillas who fought with Al Qaeda and Taliban have established “indigenous Al Qaeda-like groups in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and ... Singapore to overthrow these governments and set up an Islamic state,” Lee said.

“The US and others must support the tolerant non-militant Muslims so that they will prevail,” he told about 150 defence ministers, policymakers and analysts, including US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.

Lee said Indonesia faced the most difficult challenge as Muslim leaders began vying for the support of religious groups for the 2004 elections.

The military was one of the few institutions capable of holding Indonesia together, but needed US help to reform after being denigrated by the 1999 East Timor crisis, he said.

“The stability of Indonesia is crucial to the future of the region and the strategic balance in East Asia.”

Lee said the existence of Muslim groups, with links to the Al Qaeda network, has been building up for three decades and would not be put down readily.

“This ‘Islamic terrorism’ has been brewing since the 1970s and cannot be taken off the boil easily or soon. The war against terrorism will be long and arduous,” he said.

“Over the last three decades, as part of a worldwide trend, Muslims in the region, including Singapore, are becoming stricter in their dress, diet, religious observances, and even social interaction.

“What came as a shock was that this heightened religiosity facilitated Muslim terror groups linked to Al Qaeda to recruit Singapore Muslims into their network.”

The 13 were motivated by a shared ideology of “universal jihad” and planned to blow up US and other Western targets’’.

Lee said “militant Islam feeds upon the insecurities and alienation that globalization generates among the less successful”.

With globalization largely US-led, America and Americans were identified as a threat to Islam, with the situation aggravated by Washington’s support for Israel.—AFP