The greatest challenge to the vital security interests of individual ASEAN
states comes from nonstate actors using force to attack both the basis of the
state and its territorial integrity. One group of nonstate actors is those using
terror tactics to further radical Islamist agendas (chapter 6). For the United States, Southeast Asia is a second front in a global war on terror. While South-
east Asian states have a common interest with the United States in combating
terrorism, the Islamist terror threat in Southeast Asia is to pluralist societies,
unconnected to U.S. interests in Iraq or Afghanistan. The Islamist terrorist
threat has been in some cases connected to, but historically independent of,
Muslim separatist movements in the region (chapter 5). Ethnic conflict in the
region is not confined to Muslim separatists. The plight of ethnic minorities in
Burma in particular has become a matter of international concern (chapter 8).