In mid-December 2022, the Maldivian Presidential Commission on Deaths and Disappearances (DDCom) submitted its final report on the disappearance of a prominent progressive journalist, Ahmed Rilwan Abdulla. Almost eight years after Rilwan mysteriously vanished from the capital Male’s suburb of Hulhumale in August 2014, the investigating agencies have connected several missing dots to reveal how he was harassed, abducted, tortured, and decapitated (Sun, December 15, 2022).

Review by Animesh Roul (November 10, 2022): Islamist terrorism is not a novel phenomenon in the Southeast Asian region and can be traced to a myriad of indigenous and transnational factors.