Lieutenant-Colonel Les Kosem to fight against both North and South Vietnam during the Vietnam War in order to obtain Cham independence. The Cham Liberation Front joined with the Montagnards and Khmer Krom to form the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races (Front Uni de Lutte des Races Opprimées, FULRO) to fight the Vietnamese. During the 1960s and prior to 1975, a series of tensions and violent clashes between the Bani Awal and Cham Sunni broke out in Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan. The problems were due to efforts of Cham Sunni to promote the more orthodox variety of Islam among the Bani, who they regarded for not having upheld the true teachings of the Quran. The most notable and active organization for the efforts was the Hiệp hội Chàm Hồi giáo Việt Nam (Cham Muslim Association of Vietnam). One key component of the Association was expanding ties between Cham Muslim communities with other Islamic countries, especially Malaysia, causing the new Socialist Republic of Vietnam's government reacted with cautious. Even when Vietnam rejoined Malaysia and Indonesia in ASEAN in 1995, the fear is still obvious as state-sponsored historians downplay historical and cultural connections between Champa and the Malay/Islamic world. After the 1976 establishment of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, some of the 55,000 Cham Muslims emigrated to Malaysia. 1,750 were also accepted as immigrants by Yemen; most settled in Ta'izz. Those who remained did not suffer violent persecution, although some writers claim that their mosques were closed by the government. In 1981, foreign visitors to Vietnam were still permitted to speak to indigenous Muslims and pray alongside them, and a 1985 account described Ho Chi Minh City's Muslim community as being especially ethnically diverse: aside from Cham people, there were also Indonesians, Malays, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Yemenis, Omanis, and North Africans; their total numbers were roughly 10,000 at the time. Vietnam's second largest mosque was opened in January 2006 in Xuân Lộc, Đồng Nai Province; its construction was partially funded by donations from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the latter has a strong tie to Vietnam. A new mosque, the largest in Vietnam, in An Giang Province, the Kahramanlar Rahmet Mosque, was opened in 2017 with Turkish funds. According to the Cham advocacy group International Office of Champa (IOC-Champa) and Cham Muslim activist Khaleelah Porome, both Cham Hindu and Muslims have experienced religious and ethnic persecution and restrictions