SINGAPORE (AFX) - Muslim militants are 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.
In a speech at the opening of an Asian security conference, Lee focused on the growing threat of militant terrorist groups which have "hi-jacked Islam as their driving force and have given it a virulent twist."
The immediate threat to the region comes from terrorist Islamic groups, and the stability of Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, is crucial to the future of East Asia, he said.
Muslims who fought with al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan, 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 faces the most difficult challenge as Muslim leaders begin vying for the support of militant groups ahead of 2004 elections.
"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 terror groups, with links to Osama bin Laden's 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 world-wide 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."
Although Singapore had detained 13 members of the militant Jemaah Islamiyah -- "a terrorist network based in Indonesia" -- another 20 escaped and are "now probably in Indonesia," Lee said.
The 13 were motivated by a shared ideology of universal jihad (holy war) and planned to blow up US and other Western targets, with their leader Ibrahim Maidin "unrepentant and defiant under detention".
Lee said militant Islam "feeds upon the insecurities and alienation that globalisation generates among the less successful."
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