Southeast Asian Terror Exhibits Al Qaeda Traits

Terror suspects connected to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network organized and financed a wave of deadly bombings in Indonesia and the Philippines over the last 14 months to advance a holy war aimed at carving out an Islamic state in Southeast Asia.

Evidence pieced together from the accounts of admitted bombing participants, official documents and interviews with authorities shows that the Jemaah Islamiah terror ring has orchestrated a campaign of violence against Christians in the region.

The clandestine group’s activities have included bombing at least 18 churches and other civilian targets, robbing banks to raise funds for holy war, assassinating a Christian politician in Malaysia and mobilizing militant Muslims to fight in remote islands of Indonesia. Acts of violence masterminded by the group have killed at least 35 people and injured more than 230, according to police accounts.

Authorities determined late last year that the group was preparing to set off seven truck bombs simultaneously in Singapore to destroy targets that included the U.S. Embassy and prominent American businesses. Police in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines have arrested more than 40 people allegedly connected to the network. On Friday, the Singaporean government released excerpts of surveillance videos, made by Jemaah Islamiah members, of the embassy and other bombing targets.

But the group had a far broader reach and more ambitious plans than previously thought.

Abu Bakar Bashir, an Indonesian cleric identified by authorities in Singapore and Malaysia as the ideological leader of Jemaah Islamiah, says Muslims are waging a holy war to establish an Islamic state. The focus of the fighting has been a triangular area that includes the province of Mindanao in the southern Philippines and Sulawesi and the Molucca Islands in Indonesia.

Bashir denies any part in terrorism but says the suffering of Muslims justifies the bombing of targets outside the combat zone, including churches that support Christians in the fighting.

“Where there are Muslims being oppressed, there is jihad,” he said in an interview. “If a Muslim is being oppressed, it is compulsory for other Muslims to defend him.”

Two figures have emerged as the architects of the terror campaign, according to official accounts:Riduan Isamuddin, an Indonesian cleric better known as Hambali; and Faiz bin Abu Bakar Bafana, a naturalized Malaysian who has been arrested in his native Singapore. Indonesia has issued an arrest warrant for Hambali, who is on the run. He is wanted by both Malaysia and Singapore. Authorities say both Hambali and Bafana are top leaders of Jemaah Islamiah and have clear links to Al Qaeda. Police and witnesses say both were personally involved in planning bombings that killed dozens of people.

Jakarta Mall Bomber Came From Malaysia

When Taufik Abdul Halim blew off his lower right leg at a Jakarta shopping mall Aug. 1, police say it was Indonesia’s first known attack by an international terrorist.

Indonesia had been plagued since 2000 by a series of bombings, many of them targeting crowded churches. Some blasts were blamed on separatists from the province of Aceh, others on disaffected members of the military.

But until the mall explosion, which occurred six weeks before Sept. 11, police had not connected the attacks to international terrorism.

Police say Halim, 27, placed a bomb in a cardboard Dunkin’ Donuts box and was carrying it into the Atrium mall when it exploded prematurely, injuring him and six others. After his arrest, investigators discovered he was a Malaysian citizen and belonged to the Malaysian Moujahedeen Group, a terrorist organization now understood to be closely connected to Jemaah Islamiah.

Halim said in an interview with The Times at the central Jakarta courthouse that he entered Indonesia illegally in 2000 and went to Ambon, the provincial capital of the Moluccas, to support the 3-year-old jihad against Christians. Several months later, he traveled to Jakarta, the national capital, where authorities say he took part in at least one church bombing before the Atrium blast.

Halim’s arrest led police to Dedi Setiono, better known as Abbas, an Indonesian who has acknowledged receiving military training in Afghanistan. Abbas admitted driving Halim and the bomb to the mall in the hope of killing Christians.

“They wanted to blow up the Atrium because they thought there was an office of a Christian group upstairs that financed the Christians in Ambon,” said Muchtar Luthfi, Abbas’ lawyer. “He believed that this was a continuation of the war from Ambon to Jakarta.”

Christians to Blame in Moluccas, Militant Says

In a courthouse interview, Abbas said the fighting in the Moluccas is a religious war against Christians. “The conflict in the Moluccas is actually about faith,” he said. “They started first, and we are just defending ourselves.”

Abbas, 40, proved to be a key link to Hambali, the Jemaah Islamiah’s alleged operations leader. He said he first met Hambali in 1987, when they were both aiding anti-Soviet fighters in Afghanistan. They later met again in Ambon, he said.

Abbas confessed to police that he attended a meeting with Hambali in Jakarta in late 2000 to plot seven church bombings on Christmas Eve. Abbas said that Hambali was the main organizer and financier of the plot and that he was assisted by another Indonesian cleric named Imam Samudra.

Police say Hambali appointed Abbas field commander of the Jakarta church bombings.

Some investigators believe that Hambali is Al Qaeda’s point man in Southeast Asia. Members of Jemaah Islamiah arrested in Malaysia told police that he boasted of meeting several times with Osama bin Laden, and Malaysian officials believe that he knew of plans for the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States before they occurred.

Authorities say Hambali has been involved in terrorist plots tied to Al Qaeda in at least four countries. In the Philippines, they say, Hambali helped finance a 1995 plan to bomb 12 airliners and kill Pope John Paul II. In Malaysia, officials say, he hosted two of the Sept. 11 hijackers and a suspect in the Yemen bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole in October 2000. In Singapore, authorities say, he sent Jemaah Islamiah recruits to train at Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and helped plan the foiled embassy bomb plot.

Hambali, along with other Jemaah Islamiah leaders, based his operations in Malaysia, where he used prayer groups to attract recruits. In late 2000, authorities say, he returned to his native Indonesia.

“We have information that Hambali told his friends in Malaysia that he would come to Indonesia and would have a small party,” said Brig. Gen. Saleh Saaf, Indonesian police spokesman. “The small party turned out to be bombings.”

On the evening of Dec. 24, 2000, bombs exploded at 24 churches across Indonesia, many of them while Christmas services were being held. Nineteen people were killed, and more than 100 were injured.

The bombs all had the same kinds of explosives and detonators, and most went off minutes apart, police said.

More bombings followed. So far, police have tied Hambali and Samudra to 13 of them, including two church blasts in July just 10 days before the Atrium mall bombing.

“In all those cases, Hambali was the puppeteer behind the screen,” Saaf said. “He was not directly involved, but he led the meeting, made the strategy, decided who does what, assigned the task.”

Abbas’ account of Hambali’s role in planning the Christmas Eve bombings fit well with the confessions of other Islamic militants arrested in the city of Bandung after two attempted bombings there went awry just before Christmas.

In one case, four people were killed in the explosion of a bomb they were making. Another would-be bomber died when a bomb he was carrying on the back of a motorcycle went off.

Survivors of the blasts told police that Hambali organized and paid for their efforts. He made contact with the Bandung militants through a prayer group and paid them $6,000, they said. Hambali said the money was donated by a Malaysian woman concerned about the suffering of Muslims in Indonesia, they told police.

Police say the Atrium attack was the last bombing Hambali carried out in Indonesia. Samudra gave explosives and detonators for the attack to Abbas, who passed them on to Halim for assembly, police say.

Abbas and Halim went to the mall twice on Aug. 1, apparently first to survey the scene and then to deliver the bomb. Police say Halim was carrying the bomb when it exploded, injuring his right leg and damaging his hearing. His shattered leg was later amputated below the knee.

Indonesian authorities say they are searching for Hambali and are continuing to investigate his activities.

“Is Hambali really a member of the Al Qaeda network?” Saaf asked. “We have to prove that. But about Hambali operating in Indonesia, that is correct. And the victims of his work are many.”

U.S. Deploys Troops in Southern Philippines

In recent weeks, the U.S. military has gained a foothold in the turbulent jihad triangle in the first expansion of the global anti-terror war outside Afghanistan.

The Pentagon has deployed 660 troops in Mindanao to train and assist the Philippine army in combating the Abu Sayyaf kidnapping gang, an Islamic rebel group with historical ties to Bin Laden. The campaign is billed as a six-month exercise. The first casualties occurred last month when a U.S. military helicopter plunged into the sea, killing all 10 soldiers aboard.

Although Indonesia and the Philippines have treated the conflicts as separate, Islamic militants view them as integral parts of one holy war.

The three conflict zones--Mindanao, the Moluccas and Sulawesi--are within a few hundred miles of one another. The lack of border controls makes the movement of combatants, weapons and explosives a simple matter.

In Mindanao, militant Islamic groups have battled Philippine government troops for years. The Abu Sayyaf gang has kidnapped foreigners and villagers for ransom and beheaded dozens of victims, including tourist Guillermo Sobero of Corona, Calif.

Thousands of Islamic fighters, including some foreigners, also have been trained by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, one of the largest militant groups with an estimated force of 15,000. The Pentagon says it has no plans to target the group despite its alleged links to terrorism, but Moro commanders have threatened to shoot American soldiers who enter their territory.

Only a few hundred miles to the south, in the Moluccas, Muslims and Christians have attacked and burned one another’s villages in a war that has claimed at least 6,000 lives and displaced 500,000 people. Hundreds of Christians have been captured, forced to convert to Islam and required to undergo circumcision or female genital excision.

Muslim and Christian leaders from the Moluccas recently signed a peace accord, but its effectiveness is in doubt because some Islamic militants, including the 3,000-strong Laskar Jihad, were not part of the deal.

More recently, the religious fighting has spread to the neighboring island of Sulawesi, where hundreds of homes have been burned. Authorities believe that Islamic militants linked to Al Qaeda once operated a camp near the combat zone where foreign fighters came for military training.

Bashir, the reputed leader of Jemaah Islamiah, says holy war is a religious duty for Muslims in Sulawesi and the Moluccas. “Jihad in the southern Philippines is also compulsory because the Muslims there are oppressed and the Christians started the fight,” he said.

For the militants, the region has functioned like a mini-Afghanistan, where extremists can receive training and combat experience and then fan out to perpetrate mayhem elsewhere.

One Western security expert said that more than 400 Indonesians received training at a Moro Islamic Liberation Front camp in 1998 and then went to the Moluccas shortly before the outbreak of fighting there.

Militants dispatched from the region also carried out bombings in Manila and Jakarta. In at least one case, police say, operatives brought explosives 1,500 miles from the Moluccas to Jakarta to blow up churches.

Now, authorities fear the lawless region’s 1,600 islands could provide a haven for Islamic extremists on the run, including Al Qaeda fighters fleeing Afghanistan.

Jemaah Islamiah appears to have served as an intermediary between Al Qaeda and local Islamic militants, hooking up with established groups such as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Mindanao and the Malaysian Moujahedeen Group. It also recruited extremists for its own terror cells.

Until recently, Malaysia is said to have been the main base of operations for the radical clerics who led the group. There, Bashir, Hambali and others allegedly exhorted their followers to go to the Moluccas and fight in the holy war.

Malaysian officials say militants linked to the group staged bank robberies to raise money for the jihad and killed Joe Fernandez, a Christian politician, because he was allegedly proselytizing and converting Muslims to Christianity.

One alleged terrorist, Musa Abdul Hir, illustrates the international nature of Jemaah Islamiah’s activities. Known as Zulkifli in Malaysia, he is the brother-in-law of Halim, the would-be Jakarta mall bomber. Malaysian police believe that he is a leader of the Malaysian Moujahedeen Group and took part in the slaying of Fernandez. In Indonesia, police say he attended the meeting to plan the Christmas Eve bombings. Authorities in both countries say his whereabouts are unknown.

Indonesian Trained at Afghan Mullah’s Camp

While Hambali was spreading Jemaah Islamiah’s influence to Indonesia, another Indonesian, Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi, was doing the same in the Philippines.

Arrested in January in Manila on a tip from Singaporean authorities, he gave police a detailed confession that reveals the overlapping nature of the region’s militant groups.

A onetime student in an Islamic school in Indonesia founded by Bashir, he went to Pakistan in 1990. He was recruited there by Jemaah Islamiah and received military training at a camp run by an Afghan mullah on the Pakistani-Afghan border, police say.

In 1995, he went to Malaysia and met Bafana, identified by Singaporean authorities as a top Jemaah Islamiah boss who had direct contact with Al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan. Al-Ghozi said in a signed confession that Bafana directed him to go to the Philippines and participate “in the Holy War in Mindanao.”

He appears to have been a successful operative. By the end of 1996, he was receiving weapons training from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and at the time of his arrest in January, police identified him as an explosives expert for the group.

By late 2000, when it was about to launch its bombing campaign in Indonesia, Jemaah Islamiah was ready to stage bombings in Manila as well. Al-Ghozi said he organized a series of blasts to be carried out by members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. He paid them $6,000 to buy 150 pounds of explosives and plant the bombs. In a phone conversation, Bafana approved the plot to further the holy war, Al-Ghozi said.

In early December, Al-Ghozi said, Bafana and Hambali flew to Manila to go over the plans for the bombings. They discussed possible targets and toured the city.

The bombs went off on Dec. 30, 2000, at five locations, including a crowded transit station, killing 22 people and injuring more than 100.

Investigators speculate that the simultaneous bombings in the Philippines and Indonesia just six days apart were practice runs for an attack on Singapore.

The Singapore plot called for seven truck bombs, each packed with 3 tons of the explosive fertilizer ammonium nitrate. Al-Ghozi, calling himself Mike, and an alleged Al Qaeda operative using the name Sammy arrived in Singapore last October and began planning the attack, authorities say. Bafana helped orchestrate the operation, officials say.

Sammy, identified as a Canadian of Kuwaiti descent, Al-Ghozi and Jemaah Islamiah cell members surveyed and videotaped potential targets, including the U.S., Israeli, British and Australian embassies. They also videotaped the Sembawang wharf where U.S. Navy vessels dock, the Changi naval base and warships in the area.

One of the videos shows Jemaah Islamiah member Mohammed Nazir bin Mohammed Uthman in the foreground and the U.S. Embassy in the background. The footage was shot by Al-Ghozi, the Singaporean government said, and was found at the office of Bafana’s brother, Fathi Abu Bakar Bafana, who has been identified as the leader of the cell. The video was stored with the title “Visiting Singapore Sightseeing.”

“The group was expected to continue to conduct several rounds of surveillance, observation and video recordings before a final confirmation of the specific targets would be made by the foreign terrorists,” the government said.

After a cell member placed a purchase order for 17 tons of ammonium nitrate in early December, Singaporean authorities moved in and arrested 13 members of the group, including the Bafana brothers and Uthman, and tipped off Philippine authorities that Al-Ghozi was in Manila. Sammy is still at large.

After his arrest, Al-Ghozi told investigators where they could find a ton of explosives he had hidden in Mindanao and planned to take to Singapore via Indonesia.

Singaporean authorities say they fear that Jemaah Islamiah leaders who have taken refuge in Indonesia are plotting another attack.

“These JI cells in Singapore have been disrupted, but the masterminds are still at large in Indonesia,” said Singaporean Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew in a recent speech. “The danger will go away only when these nests of Al Qaeda-trained operatives around us are broken up.”

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Times staff writer Mark Fineman in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Sari Sudarsono of The Times’ Jakarta Bureau; and special correspondent Sol Vanzi in Manila contributed to this report.