The Fighting Buddhas.

The Buddhist nations of Southeast Asia were bystanders in the war on terror until May 28. That's when Cambodian authorities shut down an Islamic boarding school outside Phnom Penh and charged its Egyptian rector and two Thai teachers with engaging in international terrorism. More arrests followed in Cambodia and neighboring Thailand, another largely Buddhist nation. On June 10 Thai police seized three men for plotting to bomb Western embassies and tourist spots in Bangkok during a September summit of Pacific nations. Days later, they arrested a Thai man trying to sell radioactive material that could have been used to make a "dirty bomb" to undercover cops posing as Islamic extremists. Now, after seven arrests in Thailand and Cambodia, no one imagines Buddhist lands are beyond terror.

Quite the opposite. All the suspects stand accused of belonging to Jemaah Islamiah, a terrorist network associated with Al Qaeda that has been on the run since 9-11. More than 140 JI members have been arrested since the Bush administration began pressuring Southeast Asian countries to get tough on radical Islam. The largest Muslim nations in the region--Malaysia and Indonesia--have been hunting JI with special vigor since it was tied to 202 deaths in last October's bombings on Bali, a Hindu island whose residents had falsely believed it was off the map of Muslim terror. Now nearby Buddhist countries fear they present equally vulnerable targets.

JI was formed in the 1960s with the goal of uniting Indonesia, Malay- sia, Singapore and the southern Phil-ippines in a Pan-Islamic state. Lately, it's been branching out. Rohan Gunaratna, a terror expert based in Singapore, says JI's operational leadership fled to Thailand after Malaysia began cracking down on the group in late 2001. A Western diplomat says JI leaders have traveled through southern Thailand seeking out political gatherings and schools where ...