-Caveat Lector-
How the CIA traced al
Qaeda's regional role
October 20 2002
For a decade the terrorist network has been slowly
penetrating the region and finding a common cause with
local militants. Lindsay Murdoch reports.
For three months Omar al-Faruq refused to talk.
But CIA interrogators at a US-held military base in the Afghan
desert used sleep deprivation, isolation and other undisclosed
techniques banned in the US to break the 37-year-old Muslim
cleric they believed to be a key al Qaeda representative in
South-East Asia.
Finally, on September 9, al-Faruq succumbed and began telling
his captors about Jemaah Islamiah, the militant Islamic group
that has emerged as the key suspect for the Bali bombing.
The testimony of al-Faruq, who had been arrested at an
Indonesian mosque in June, sent shockwaves through Asia's
capitals and prompted the US to issue a new warning about a
threat to Western economic interests only days before the Bali
blast.
According to CIA summaries of the testimony, Kuwaiti-born
al-Faruq said he had been ordered by al Qaeda to organise local
militants to launch large-scale attacks against US interests in
Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand,
Taiwan, Vietnam and Cambodia. If he was arrested or killed,
others were ready to take his place.
He said, among other things, that Jemaah Islamiah operatives
had obtained explosives from army people to be used to bomb
the American embassy in Jakarta (the bombing never took
place but the information has provided a vital clue for
investigators trying to trace the origin of the Bali bomb).
But even more alarming, Western analysts say, was that al-
Faruq confirmed already gathered intelligence indicating that
for a decade al Qaeda had been slowly penetrating the region,
co-opting Muslims, establishing independent cells and finding a
common cause with local militants.
As investigators in Bali begin to piece together what led to the
devastating blast outside the Sari Club, US and Australian
intelligence agencies already have substantial evidence linking
Jemaah Islamiah to atrocities across the region that were
previously thought to be unconnected.
Waging a campaign of violence in a bizarre attempt to create a
pan-Islamic state in South-East Asia, the group's operatives
have bombed scores of churches and other civilian targets,
robbed banks, assassinated a Christian politician in Malaysia
and mobilised hundreds of militant Muslims to fight Christians.
Other plots, including one last year to blow up diplomatic
missions and other targets in Singapore, failed after they were
uncovered by Singapore's intelligence agency.
Although crackdowns in Singapore, Malaysia and the
Philippines have seen many members of Jemaah Islamiah, or JI
as it is known, arrested over the past year, the group's leaders
remain at large.
In the immediate aftermath of the Bali bombing, the world's
media descended on Jemaah Islamiah's spiritual leader Abu
Bakar Bashir at the Islamic boarding school he runs in central
Java, where he urges the waging of a jihad, or holy war, against
Americans, Jews and other infidels.
But if intense foreign pressure forces the government in Jakarta
to jail 64-year-old Bashir, the Jemaah Islamiah's militant wing
will remain intact and extremely dangerous, headed by a 37-
year-old Indonesian veteran of the Afghan war against the
Soviet Union, Riduan Isamuddin, alias Hambali.
While Bashir has stolen the media spotlight, Hambali is the
principal al Qaeda contact for Jemaah Islamiah, apparently
recruited a decade ago by Osama bin Laden's lieutenants in
Afghanistan, Western intelligence officials say.
The failure of law enforcement agencies in the region to catch
Hambali is one of the key reasons intelligence officials fear that
al Qaeda retains the capacity to strike again in Asia.
A long-time resident of Malaysia, where he set up an Afghan
war veterans' association, Hambali is now believed to be living
in Indonesia, possibly Sulawesi, where another bomb was
exploded last weekend outside the Philippines' consulate.
Hambali is the key to all the "really bad stuff", says a Western
intelligence official in Jakarta. "He's the one we want more than
any of the others. His hand is everywhere."
Hambali's involvement can be traced to many of the worst
atrocities and attempted terrorist plots in the region since the
early 1990s. These include a bomb that killed 22 people in
Manila, church bombings across Indonesia on Christmas Eve
2000, plots to bomb US embassies, and another hatched in late
1994 to blow up 11 US airliners simultaneously while they
were flying across Asia.
A short, stout, bearded man who grew up in the highlands of
West Java, Hambali answered the call to jihad and spent three
years fighting in Afghanistan, where he became an experienced
al Qaeda foot-soldier.
Most of the radical Islamic groups now under intense scrutiny
in South-East Asia have an Afghan connection.
Like thousands of others who fought with the mujihadeen in
Afghanistan in the 1980s, Hambali returned home believing in
the need to fight a jihad to create an Islamic state governed by
sharia law.
But he also persuaded radicals in Indonesia, Malaysia,
Singapore and the Philippines to dovetail their desire to bring
Islamic law to their home countries with al Qaeda's global
agenda.
Jihad had to be waged to protect Islam against the Western and
Jewish infidels, Hambali argued.
He found plenty of support among radical minority groups
across South-East Asia, home to a third of the world's
Muslims, and built a logistical support base for al Qaeda's
broader network.
Hambali, for example, met two of the World Trade Centre
bombers in Malaysia in January, 2000. He also met a suspect in
the Yemen bombing of the USS destroyer Cole in October,
2000.
Hambali's organisation provided money and documents
identifying Zacarias Moussaoui as a consultant for a Malaysian
company that allowed him to enter the US. Moussaoui is on
trial in the US over the September 11 attacks.
The fact that Hambali managed to operate undetected in Asia
for a decade indicates how regional countries were absorbed
solely with domestic issues and either refused to accept or
failed to see that local militants could be linked to international
terrorism.
That illusion was shattered with a series of arrests under
Singapore's Internal Security Act, which allows for indefinite
detention without trial.
On September 19, Singapore issued a public statement directly
accusing Hambali of preparing attacks on targets in Singapore
in an attempt to create a situation conducive to overthrowing
the Malaysian Government and making Malaysia an Islamic
state.
The attacks on key Singapore installations would be portrayed
as acts of aggression by the Malaysian Government, thereby
generating animosity and distrust between Malaysia and
Singapore, the statement said.
Intelligence analysts say that while Jemaah Islamiah usually
operates on its own, evidence points to the group swapping
assistance and expertise with al Qaeda and cooperating in
business ventures.
Omar al-Faruq, the Indonesian cleric interrogated in
Afghanistan, revealed that Bashir had coordinated a plan to
spark a civil war in Indonesia with a man called Rashid, a
senior lieutenant of Osama bin Laden.
One of the CIA's summary documents says: "Rashid acts as a
representative of a committee of Gulf-state sheiks who are al
Qaeda financiers and who have committed ample funds,
weapons, ammunition and computers to support this war."
Al-Faruq left his captors with no doubt that Jemaah Islamiah is
determined to achieve its goal of a pure Islamic state by
provoking widespread bloodshed. He told them he had cased
tall buildings in Jakarta because he had thought of using them
for sniper positions should the plan succeed in provoking
fighting among the civilian population.
US officials suspect that following the US-led attacks in
Afghanistan many al Qaeda militants have fled to Indonesia
where they have been welcomed into radicalised families and
groups.
In a country where the Vice-President, Hamzah Haz, has
provided political protection for Bashir and others who
advocate violent campaigns in the name of Islam, al Qaeda
found a haven from the US-led war on terror. Indonesia's
borders are porous, immigration, customs and law enforcement
agencies are largely corrupt.
In a recently released report on al Qaeda's presence in South-
East Asia, the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based
think tank, denied that Indonesia was a terrorist hotbed.
Proponents of radical Islam remain a small minority, the group
said. But even a tiny group of people can cause an immense
amount of harm.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/10/19/103456135458
5.html
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