THE WASHINGTON POST, Thursday, September 12, 2002
Detainee Called Key Al Qaeda Figure in Southeast Asia
By Susan Schmidt and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Omar al-Farouq, the detainee whose information prompted the United States to raise
its terrorist threat indicator for the first time, is al Qaeda's facilitator for Southeast Asia
and reported directly to Abu Zubaida, the terror group's senior operations coordinator,
government sources said yesterday.
Al-Farouq, who has been in U.S. custody in Afghanistan since June, told interrogators
on Monday that al Qaeda was seeking to launch multiple same-day attacks on U.S.
embassies in South Asia, was not committed to any particular date and would act
when there is a letdown in security.
"Next week to them is just as good as today," said one U.S. official, summarizing
what al-Farouq has told investigators.
Information provided by al-Farouq helped prompt the shutdown of 13 U.S. embassies
and consulates this week and led the government to elevate the terrorist threat status
Tuesday to "Orange," reflecting a "high" chance of attack on U.S. interests.
"He's helping knit together a lot of things out there," said a Jakarta source familiar
with the al-Farouq investigation. A security official in the region said, "his information
was the final straw that pushed Washington and Jakarta into that increased
awareness mode. He was able to provide a lot of detail."
Al-Farouq, an Arab in his mid-thirties, is a key al Qaeda link to Jemaah Islamiah, a
regional terror network in Southeast Asia suspected of organizing a foiled plot earlier
this year to blow up the U.S., British and Australian embassies in Singapore,
according to U.S. and Indonesian officials. Al Qaeda leaders put out word in advance,
al-Farouq has told investigators, that if they were incommunicado, lower level
operatives could conduct attacks on their own.
Al-Farouq's disclosures, along with information now being provided by several other
detained al Qaeda operatives, is described as specific and concrete, a welcome
advance on the diffuse and often coded "chatter" that intelligence agencies have
obtained during months of monitoring computer and telephone communications. His
revelations appear to show increasing success by the government in securing vital
information about terrorist plots from the hundreds of detainees in U.S. military
custody and scores of others who have been arrested or held by other governments,
officials said.
Al-Farouq and another detainee in Afghanistan -- one with knowledge of al Qaeda
cells in Yemen and other Gulf states -- have been supplying the names of al Qaeda
operatives planning attacks on U.S. interests, government sources said. Zubaida, the
highest ranking al Qaeda official in custody, has confirmed al-Farouq's role in al
Qaeda's operations and has verified some of the information he has provided,
according to one U.S. official.
"People only hear about the tip of the iceberg, but there have been some real success
stories lately," one U.S. intelligence official said. "It's like a line of dominos: One of
them falls, and that tips another one over and so on."
But authorities also conceded that progress in obtaining information is still slow and
fractured, hampered by the small number of high-level al Qaeda operatives in custody.
Zubaida provided snippets of information and tips last spring that led to a flurry of
mid-level terror alerts and were instrumental in the apprehension in Chicago of Jose
Padilla, who allegedly was scouting targets for a radiological "dirty" bomb. But many
of Zubaida's other claims have never been confirmed, and, according to some officials,
may have represented attempts to fool his captors.
One official said U.S. military and intelligence agencies are improving their ability to
detect misleading accounts, in part because the pool of evidence is always
expanding. "Many of them are trained in anti-interrogation techniques, but that's
detectable and, over time, it can be overcome," the official said. "You just have to try
different approaches and continually check every piece of information."
One U.S. official said, however, that Zubaida has helped establish al-Farouq's
credibility. "Zubaida was coordinating tactics, techniques and procedures," said the
official. "When Farouq says they were going to do X, they run that by Zubaida, who
says 'yes, that is what they were told to do.' " Some of the information concerns
building explosive devices or conducting reconnaissance, the official said.
One source in Indonesia familiar with the case said the information from al-Farouq
expanded on the account of another informant, who had told Indonesian police that he
had been approached for help in constructing a car bomb. Indonesian sources said
al-Farouq revealed the information that led to this week's threat alert in an almost
casual aside with interrogators.
Al-Farouq was picked up by Indonesian authorities in June after his telephone number
was discovered in the files of another al Qaeda suspect's computer. He was described
by an Indonesian intelligence official as a native of Kuwait or Iraq who went through al
Qaeda's training camps in Afghanistan. Zubaida dispatched him to Indonesia four
years ago, the official said, where he built ties with local Muslim militants. He has
been a recruiter for Zubaida, and emerged as a top financier for extremist activities in
Indonesia. Using local Islamic charities, he raised money both from within Indonesia
and overseas to finance these groups.
Al-Farouq developed a working relationship with Agus Dwikarna, an Indonesian
businessman accused of militant bombing plots, Jakarta sources said. Dwikarna was
sentenced to 17 years in prison after his arrest at the Manila airport in March with
plastic explosives and detonation cable in his suitcase. U.S officials discovered
al-Farouq's phone number in Dwikarna's computer. Indonesian police arrested him and
turned him over to U.S. authorities.
Correspondents Ellen Nakashima and Alan Sipress in Jakarta contributed to this
report.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
|
