CNN, August 28, 2002 Posted: 4:06 PM HKT (0806 GMT)
Fears over new Asian terror group
Investigators say radical Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir has been trying to unite
armed Muslim gangs across the region
From Maria Ressa
CNN Jakarta Bureau Chief
JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) -- Investigators in Southeast Asia are discovering more
details about a radical terrorist network coopted by Osama Bin Laden's al Qaeda
network.
Earlier this year officials were talking about Asia's Jemaah Islamiya, behind plots to
bomb the U.S. embassies in Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia.
Now they are discovering details about its fighting arm -- a clandestine group called
Rabitatul Mujahidin -- that is trying to unite different armed Muslim groups in the
region.
Investigators who have worked to untangle the branches of radical Muslim cleric Abu
Bakar Ba'asyir's network say members of Jemmah Islamiyah worked closely with al
Qaeda operatives, including Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, a Canadian of Kuwaiti
descent who was arrested early this year and is now in U.S. custody.
From Jabarah and others arrested in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines,
authorities learned of the existence of Rabitatul Mujahidin that intelligence sources
said was established by Ba'asyir in 1999.
Andrea Domingo, the Philippines immigration commissioner, said al Qaeda was
funding Jemmah Islamiyah, which in turn was funding Rabitatul Mujahidin.
Another key link in the chain is an Indonesian man named Agus Dwikarna, now
imprisoned in the Philippines. Philippine police documents obtained by CNN indicate
Dwikarna was one of the founders of Rabitatul Mujahidin.
Investigators searched numbers in his cell phone and followed the trail to a Kuwaiti
man, Omar al-Faruq, who was detained in June by Indonesian authorities and is now
being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Indonesian intelligence officials said al-Faruq and Dwikarna took senior al Qaeda
leaders on a tour of Indonesian conflict areas in 2000.
A senior intelligence official told CNN that Ba'asyir has admitted attending meetings in
Malaysia where terrorist plots were hatched and to knowing some men who have been
arrested on suspicion of terrorism.
But he has denied actually carrying out any attacks.
© 2001 Cable News Network LP, LLLP
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