The New York Times, Saturday, November 22, 2003
Officials Fear New Attacks by Militants in Southeast Asia
By RAYMOND BONNER
MANILA, Nov. 22 — American officials in Southeast Asia are bracing for new terrorist
attacks as they gather fresh information about Jemaah Islamiyah, the radical Islamic
organization based in Indonesia.
Despite arrests of some of the group's top leaders, including Riduan Isamuddin, the
group remains intact and is growing in strength and numbers, American and Asian
officials said in interviews this week.
Recruiting of new members and fund-raising have been easier for the group because of
widespread opposition in the region to the American war in Iraq, the officials said. In
the last few months, men, money and arms have flowed to the group through the
Philippines, a center for training and money laundering.
Mr. Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, was captured by the Central Intelligence
Agency in Thailand in August.
The officials expect new attacks against Westerners, with Americans and Australians
at the top of the risk list. Indonesia is the most likely place, the officials said.
Indonesian officials said last week that they had seized documents showing that
Jemaah Islamiyah was planning attacks on Citibank branches in the country.
The Philippines is also considered a prime target. Mr. Isamuddin, who was a member
of Osama bin Laden's inner circle, has told his interrogators that the Israeli Embassy
and a Manila hotel were on the group's list of targets, a Western official said.
"It is not a question of if, but when and where," a senior American official said.
Malaysia and Thailand are considered lesser targets, but far from immune, the
officials said.
To counter the threat from Jemaah Islamiyah, the C.I.A. has more agents
clandestinely operating around the region than at any time since the Vietnam War,
officials said. The Bush administration is also stepping up military assistance to the
Philippines, under the rubric of training exercises. United States officials have
extensive intelligence showing that Jemaah Islamiyah has a major training base on
the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, a predominantly Muslim area in this
overwhelmingly Catholic country.
"We don't have a clear picture yet of the J.I. order of battle," an American official said.
"But with every interrogation, we learn there's more of them than we thought."
In a speech at an Asia-Pacific conference in Hawaii on Thursday, Wong Kan Seng,
Singapore's security minister, said Jemaah Islamiyah had been disrupted, but by no
means eliminated. Singapore intelligence has concluded that the group was "likely to
plan more suicide bomb attacks along the lines of Bali and the recent Hotel Marriott
bombing in Jakarta," Mr. Wong said.
Some new information came from the interrogation in Manila of Taufik Rifki, Jemaah
Islamiyah's finance and logistics officer in the Philippines, officials said. Mr. Rifki was
seized last month in Mindanao, in what has been publicly described as a Philippine
police operation. Privately, officials say the United States had a considerable role. His
questioning continued this week.
"He's been a gold mine," a Western official said.
Mr. Rifki, born in Central Java in August 1974, attended Islamic schools there before
being dispatched to the Philippines by Jemaah Islamiyah in 1998. He has given his
interrogators details about Jemaah Islamiyah's structure and hierarchy in the
Philippines, as well as the graduates of the Mindanao camps, where courses ranged
from how to operate in a foreign country to advanced bomb-making.
The C.I.A. is now poring over his accounting records and cellphone text messages.
"I need chemicals and a detonator," reads one message he sent in August. Other of
his messages stored in the telephone were more personal: "I love you. I miss you."
Most of those coming to the Philippines for training are Indonesians in their late 20's
or early 30's, according to a roster of graduates of camps.
Using information from Mr. Rifki, authorities in Indonesia this month narrowly missed
capturing Azhari Husin, a 46-year-old Malaysian An American official described Mr.
Azhari as more dangerous than Mr. Isamuddin because he has the same religious
zeal but better bomb-making skills. Mr. Azhari is suspected of having a role in the
attack in Bali in October 2002 that killed more than 200 people, and more recently on
the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Australian and Indonesian officials have said.
Mr. Rifki's capture appears to have disrupted a planned operation, a Western official
said. But he was careful not to say it had prevented it. "It may have only been
postponed a month or two," he said.
Although many members of Jemaah Islamiyah trained in Qaeda camps in
Afghanistan, Western and Asian governments increasingly consider it a stand-alone
regional operation, with its own camps, recruiting, financing and agenda: the
establishment of a Islamic state across an arc of Southeast Asia.
Mr. Isamuddin was thought to be the vital link between Jemaah Islamiyah and Al
Qaeda, and the source of money and technology. Now, officials say the Qaeda
network is more decentralized.
The view of Australian intelligence agencies, which are considered to have a better
understanding of Jemaah Islamiyah than their American counterparts, is that the
organization "has matured," an official said. "It is resilient, it is flexible," he said. "It
doesn't need Al Qaeda."
The Philippines has been slow to accept the presence of terrorists here. When a
newspaper article about Jemaah Islamiyah camps on Mindanao appeared in June,
Roilo Golez, the national security adviser, issued a stern denial, saying that if there
had been any camps, they were shut in 2000.
Officials insisted on that line for months, though the United States, Australia, and
other countries were providing the government with evidence that Jemaah Islamiyah
recruits were still training here, Western officials said this week.
A few days after President Bush visited the Philippines last month, President Gloria
Macapagal Arroyo acknowledged publicly that Jemaah Islamiyah was training in
Mindanao. "We are elevating the J.I. into our official national threat spectrum," she
said.
Last week, Andrea Domingo, the Philippine commissioner of immigration, said the
government had evidence of 30 foreigners training in Mindanao. But this week, a
Philippine military spokesman again insisted that the camps were closed three years
ago.
Mr. Bush and other Americans have praised the Philippine government for its
cooperation against terrorism. But privately, American officials have delivered stern
messages to Mrs. Arroyo that her government is not doing enough, Western officials
said this week.
American officials have said they are disappointed and somewhat puzzled that the
Philippine government has not shut the camps in Mindanao.
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