December16, 2006: Islamic extremist religious leaders are telling their followers to leave Christians alone this Christmas. In past years, Islamic radicals had been encouraged to attack churches and Christmas. This led to counterattacks by Christians and, in areas where Christians were a large minority, years of sectarian strife. But years of counter-terrorist operations have put the Islamic radicals on the defensive.

December 12, 2006: Malaysia says that cooperation between Malaysian and Indonesian intelligence agencies has been responsible for the lack of Islamic terrorist attacks in the past year. Several high ranking Islamic radicals have been captured in the past year, and it was often mentioned that the arrested men were unable to find safe havens in either Malaysia or Indonesia. As a result, several prominent Islamic terrorists are thought to be in the Philippines, where they are the subject of an intense search.

December 11, 2006: In Aceh, former separatist rebels won a narrow victory over pro-Indonesia opponents, to win the governors election. The separatists agreed to a peace deal last year, one that gave Aceh more autonomy, but not independence. The new governor said that he would not push for the adoption of Sharia (Islamic) law, despite the fact that Aceh has always been the most religiously conservative part of Indonesia.