Approximately 700 Indonesians Join ISIS

On November 22, Yomiuri Shimbun reported about an interview conducted in Malaysia with Luhut Panjaitan, the Indonesian Minister for Politics, Law and Security. Panjaitan said that approximately 700 Indonesians had gone to the Middle East to join ISIS as combatants. Indonesia has two hundred million Muslim citizens, making it one of the countries with the largest Muslim populations in the world. Panjaitan is the official in charge of the Indonesian government’s antiterrorism policies. In response to the Paris attacks, he said that similar incidents could also happen in Southeast Asia, and he said that the international community needed to cooperate to eliminate threats posed by ISIS. He also pointed out that it is important to strengthen intelligence cooperation among the ASEAN member states.