Southeast Asia is emerging as an ISIS battlefield, and security threats in the region will accelerate and grow with the group’s global expansion – with an ISIS-centric threat landscape supplanting an al Qaeda-centric one.
ISIS and al Qaeda groups, networks, and cells will threaten governments and societies in 2017, but ISIS decentralization, in the form of attacks by local recruits rather than fighters returning from the ISIS heartland of Iraq and Syria, will spur a significant leap in the regional threat. In addition to attacks against government and coalition targets, ISIS will strike Westerners, non-Muslims, and Shia Muslims. Based on foiled plots, targets will include individuals, infrastructure, and other symbols of power. ISIS seeks to hit political leaders, law enforcement officials, political centers of power, police stations, places of worship, diplomatic missions (including Myanmar missions), and the media – especially television stations.
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