Asian Terrorist Network Growing

Motivated by hatred of white people and the United States, the Jemaah Islamiah terrorist network has hundreds of operatives trained in bomb-making and continues to pose a threat in at least seven countries, authorities and analysts say.

The recent discovery of Jemaah Islamiah terrorist plots in Thailand and Cambodia shows that the group has expanded its operations even as some of its alleged top leaders go on trial in Indonesia for bombing nightclubs and churches.

Recent statements by an accused terrorist, who went on trial last week, provide further evidence that the Southeast Asian network is linked to Osama bin Laden, head of the Al Qaeda network. Ali Gufron, a top Jemaah Islamiah leader accused of overseeing the Oct. 12 Bali bombing, said in court that he knew Bin Laden well during the three years he spent fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

Gufron, 43, better known as Mukhlas, instructed his wife last month to name their newborn son Usama after the Al Qaeda leader. Mukhlas described Bin Laden as “a divine gift from Allah” sent to enrich “the whole Muslim world,” according to his attorney.

The trials of Mukhlas and his associates have provided the broadest look so far into Jemaah Islamiah, which seeks to establish an Islamic state in Southeast Asia. It is led mainly by Indonesian clerics but has established itself in at least seven countries on two continents: Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia and Australia.

Authorities say the group is behind dozens of attacks in Southeast Asia that have killed more than 250 people and injured hundreds more. Police have arrested about 160 suspects connected to the organization, including a number of top leaders.

On Saturday, Indonesian police said they had arrested 10 Jemaah Islamiah members on the island of Sumatra between June 12 and June 15. Police said the suspects were involved in Christmas Eve church bombings in 2000 that killed 19 people across the country. Eight of the suspects also were involved in a May bank robbery in which three people were killed, police said.

The Bali trials have given defendants a showcase for their extreme views and a chance to promote the idea of jihad, or holy war, against the West.

Mukhlas’ brother, Amrozi bin H. Nurhasyim, the first suspect to go on trial, told the court that he was proud of the success of the attack, which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians and eight Americans. The Bali attack was necessary, he said, because violence is the only language Westerners understand.

“For the white people, it serves them right,” Amrozi said.

Amrozi, 40, complained that Westerners have polluted Indonesian culture by bringing in videos and drugs. “Foreigners have colonized late night television,” he told the court. “The Jews, the Americans and their puppets know very well how to destroy the lives of Indonesians.”

Amrozi admitted that he bought the explosives and prepared the vehicle for the car bomb that exploded outside the Sari Club and killed most of the victims. Amrozi also said he had been involved in other bombings in Indonesia, including attacks on a church and the Philippine ambassador’s residence in Jakarta, the capital.

“What would happen to Bali in 10 years if I hadn’t bombed it?” he asked the court. “For sure, the morals of Indonesians would be severely ruined because most people would not be going to mosques, churches and temples.”

Imam Samudra, the accused field commander of the Bali bombing, is being tried separately. Prosecutors say he picked the targets: two nightclubs across the street from each other packed with foreign tourists on a Saturday night.

Samudra told the court that he was waging war against the United States.

“The Sari Club was full of white people and the allies of America,” he said. “I didn’t think about further repercussions.”

Samudra, 33, born Abdul Aziz, is a computer expert who was carrying a laptop when he was arrested. Investigators say they found pictures on the computer of alleged Jemaah Islamiah leader Abu Bakar Bashir, mutilated Bali bombing victims and pornography downloaded from the Internet.

Samudra has angrily denied that the pornography is his and accused the police of planting it.

Police have arrested more than three dozen suspects in the Bali case, although some of the key operatives who are believed to have assembled the bombs are still at large.

“We have made a great deal of progress on terrorism in Southeast Asia over the last 18 months,” Adm. Thomas Fargo, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, told reporters in Manila this month. However, many suspects connected with the network remain free, including operations chief Hambali, an Al Qaeda operative who has been active in terrorist plots in the region since 1995.

Mukhlas made his remarks about Bin Laden in Jakarta when he was called as a witness at the treason trial of Bashir, 64, the alleged leader of the network. Bashir is charged with authorizing bombings of churches and other targets, and authorities are seeking evidence to tie him to the Bali bombing.

On Thursday, Amrozi testified as a witness in Bashir’s trial and said he had helped Hambali carry out bombings of three or four churches in 2000. During a meeting in the Indonesian city of Surabaya, he said, Hambali ordered him to “warm up” a church.

“I asked him what kind of warming up? There is no kitchen,” Amrozi testified.

“How come you don’t know? That’s what you do,” he recalled Hambali saying.

“Oh, bomb,” Amrozi said he replied.

Amrozi said Hambali reimbursed him for the use of explosives he had already purchased.

Andrew Tan, a security analyst at Singapore’s Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, said between 400 and 500 Jemaah Islamiah members received training in weapons handling and bomb-making at camps in Afghanistan and the southern Philippines and remain on the loose in Southeast Asia. As leading figures in the group have been arrested, new organizers have stepped forward to take their places.

“The overwhelming majority are still out there, including Hambali, the most wanted,” Tan said. “Jemaah Islamiah can be described as a mini-Al Qaeda. It has been very selective in its recruitment, so those who have been arrested are quite motivated. It’s not surprising when new leaders emerge.”

Apart from Jemaah Islamiah, Tan said, there are 70 to 100 extremist Islamic groups with a combined membership in the tens of thousands that continue operating in Indonesia with no attempt by the government to curb their activities. Authorities say cooperation between law enforcement agencies of different countries has helped prevent major attacks in the eight months since the Bali bombing.

“There has been some very good work done in the region at foiling terror attacks,” said one Western investigator who asked not to be identified. “There also has been some good work done in arresting senior people. These people are not easy to replace. In some cases it’s taken 15 years to get them in place. You can’t underestimate that.”

The most serious new plot was uncovered this month in Thailand, where police allege that Jemaah Islamiah members planned to use car bombs to blow up the embassies of five countries -- the United States, Britain, Australia, Israel and Singapore -- as well as tourist sites in the popular resort areas of Phuket and Pattaya.

Authorities learned of the plot from Singaporean officials after the arrest of Arifin bin Ali, a Jemaah Islamiah member who fled Singapore and was organizing a terrorist cell in southern Thailand.

Arifin, who received military training at an extremist camp in the southern Philippines, was arrested in May on a tip from Singapore and taken back to the island nation, where he told authorities of the Thailand plot.

Thailand’s prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, said the conspirators planned to set off the bombs in October when President Bush and other world leaders are scheduled to attend an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Bangkok, the capital.

Australian victims of the Bali attack got their first chance to confront the accused bombers last week when three men seriously injured in the blast took the stand and showed the court their scars.

Peter Hughes, 43, whose face was disfigured by burns, told the five-judge panel that he sometimes cannot stand to see his own reflection and is plagued by dreams of the bombing. “Emotionally, it’s nearly destroyed me,” the Perth resident said.

Stuart Anstee, 24, an environmental scientist from Tasmania, said he blacked out after the bomb went off in the Sari Club. When he regained consciousness, blood was spurting from his neck, leg and arm, he said. Bodies were all around.

“Australians are angry at the people who committed this crime, angry at the terrorists,” he said, looking at Amrozi.

Amrozi sat quietly during the victims’ testimony. Afterward he told the court that he understood what had been said but didn’t know if it was true.

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* Six Islamic militants went on trial in the Indonesian city of Makassar for planting a bomb at a McDonald’s restaurant that killed three and injured 15 in December. Some of the suspects are closely allied with suspects in the Bali bombing and belong to Laskar Jundullah, an extremist group linked to Jemaah Islamiah.

* Authorities are searching for Abdulrahman Mansour Jabarah, a suspect in the May suicide attack on Western residential compounds in Saudi Arabia that killed 26. He is the brother of Al Qaeda operative Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, also known as Sammy, a Canadian who played a key role in the Singapore scheme and was later arrested in Oman.

* After a wave of bombings that killed 47 people in the southern Philippines, police in May arrested terror suspect Muklis Yunos, long sought for his role in an earlier Manila bombing that killed 22. Police say he has links with Jemaah Islamiah and Al Qaeda and helped acquire explosives for the thwarted Singapore plot.