The Indonesian Supreme Court has reduced the sentence of Abu Bakr Bashir, the spiritual leader of al-Qaeda's Indonesian affiliate Jemaah Islamiyah. This is an unfortunate step backwards.

Jemaah Islamiyah, with bases throughout southeast Asia and links to Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, is a major threat in its own right. It carried out the deadly Bali bombing in October 2002, a wave of Christmas Eve bombings in 2000, provided logistical support to the 9/11 hijackers, plotted to attack US and Australian targets in Singapore, and supports Laskar Jihad which has massacred Christian communities in Indonesia.

Although Hambali, Jemaah Islamiyah's operations chief - and the highest ranking non-Arab in al-Qaeda - was captured, it remains a formidable organization. Indonesia the largest Muslim country in the world is located on a vast archipelago with many isolated regions. Its combination of geography and social and economic problems make it an excellent environment for terrorism to flourish. Jemaah Islamiyah also operates in Malaysia, Thailand, and Australia.

Abu Bakr Bashir played a key role in building the organization - in part by giving it spiritual guidance and running madrassas and guesthouses for Islamists. He was sentenced to prison on immigration charges, but will serve less than a year. The Indonesian court declined to try him for treason. The US has pressed Indonesia to prosecute him, but the Indonesian government is unwilling to push the matter. This kicking the can down the road may make things easier now, but if Bashir reinvigorates Jemaah Islamiyah this short-term peace will be paid for later, at a higher price.

The World Tribune reports U.S. Special Forces fighting Salafists in southern Algeria. This is an important story.

Algeria has been wracked by a vicious civil war between a corrupt government and astoundingly vicious Islamist terrorists. While Algeria was long a leader in far-left Third World movements, it has been moving closer to the United States because of the shared enemy of Islamist extremism. But the real story is how violence in Algeria keeps spilling beyond Algeria's borders. There are large networks of Islamist terrorists in Europe's Algerian diaspora. They include the ricin makers discovered in Britain in January 2003. The Algerian terrorists have conducted bombings in France. In December 1994 a group of Algerian terrorists seized an Air France jet with the intention of flying it into the Eiffel Tower. French commandos stormed the plane. Police across Europe have broken up networks of Algerians plotting to attack Cathedrals, Embassies, and public places. These networks are frequently engaged in identity theft and credit card fraud. This terror extends to the United States, where in December 1999 on the US-Canadian border in northwest Washington state Ahmed Ressam was caught with a carload of explosives. He was planning to attack LAX.

The Special Forces are being deployed in the sourthern part of Algeria. The Algerian terrorists are also extending into Africa. While Africa is physically remote and has a terrible infrastructure, its general chaos make it a terrorists' playground. Additionally, the chronic disorder - and large Muslim populations - could create massive recruitment opportunities. In our globalized age, anyplace can be a launching pad for terrorist activity. The insertion of a small contingent of American forces is an early investment that could save us a great deal of trouble in the future.

According to, Infighting splits Sayyaf, from the March 8, edition of The Philippine Star American assistance to the Philippine military is paying off. Abu Sayyaf is an al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group based in the predominantly Muslim southern Philippines. Ramzi Yousef, the World Trade Center I bomber, spent time in the Philippines working with Abu Sayyaf, and Osama Bin Laden's brother-in-law Mohammed Jamal Khalifa provided financing. For over a decade Abu Sayyaf has commited numerous bombings and several massacres aimed particularly at the area's Christian community. Abu Sayyaf has achieved its greatest notoriety since 2000 when it began conducting massive kidnappings, often of foreign tourists. In March 2000 Abu Sayyaf took dozens of children hostage in Basilan. In April 2000 Abu Sayyaf kidnapped 21 tourists in Malaysia - Libya paid the $10 million ransom. In August 2002 Abu Sayyaf operatives beheaded a pair of Christian hostages.

The US sent several hundred Special Forces troops to the Philippines in January 2002 in order to train the Philippine Army. With American help Abu Sayyaf has been crippled and several top leaders have been captured or killed.

According to Ghalib Andang, a captured Abu Sayyaf leader known as "Commander Robot," the Sulu-based faction had split from Abu Sayyaf chief and founder Khaddafi Janjalani because of fears that Janjalani's connections to other Islamist terrorist groups, particularly the Indonesia-based al-Qaeda affiliate Jemaah Islamiyah, are drawing too much American attention.

That's the good news.

In 1991 Abu Sayyaf split from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The larger MILF is also connected to al-Qaeda, is much larger, and has an on-again-off-again peace process with the the government. Right now the peace process is on, but in spring 2003 the MILF conducted a series of bombings killing several dozen people. Because of the Peace Process American and Filipino forces have steered clear of the MILF. But the MILF's al-Qaeda connections are formidable. MILF members trained in Afghanistan in the 1980s and more recently, Afghans, Arabs, Indonesians, and Pakistanis have all trained at MILF camps. Most notably, Jemaah Isamiyah bombmaker Fathur Rothman al-Ghozi, who helped plot a wave of bombings in Manila in December 2000 that killed 22 and injured over 100, has helped provide explosives and training to the MILF. Al-Ghozi was arrested in January 2002 and was sentenced to 17 years in prison for possessing explosives and fraudulently obtaining passports. He was also linked to plots to bomb Western Embassies in Singapore. In July 2003 he escaped, along with two Abu Sayyaf members, from a high security Filipino prison. He was killed in a gunfight with Philippine security forces in North Cotabato in October 2003.

While al-Ghozi is out of the picture, it is likely that he was not the only MILF-al-Qaeda link. While politically the Filipino government, which also faces a Communist insurgency and a shaky economy, may need to pursue peace, the record of peace processes with Islamist groups is not good. The MILF may be using this downtime to re-equip, lay low, and avoid too much American scrutiny.