THE WASHINGTON POST, Friday, September 20, 2002
Militant Alliance in Asia Is Said to Seek Regional Islamic State
By Alan Sipress and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Foreign Service
JAKARTA, Indonesia, Sept. 19 -- Islamic extremist groups with roots in at least five
Southeast Asian countries have forged a coalition seeking to transform their separate,
local struggles into a campaign to establish a single regional Islamic state,
Singaporean officials said today.
The alliance, formed over the last three years, is the handiwork of Riduan Isamuddin,
an Indonesian militant considered by regional intelligence agencies to be one of al
Qaeda's chief operatives in the area, according to Singapore's Home Affairs Ministry.
Isamuddin, also known as Hambali, is the region's most-wanted man.
Singaporean officials described Isamuddin's efforts in a lengthy statement detailing
the activities of 21 suspects arrested last month for alleged involvement in extremist
activities, including ties to a militant group that plotted to blow up the U.S. Embassy
and three other embassies in the city-state. The detention of the 21 suspects, all
Singaporean citizens with jobs ranging from butcher and taxi driver to used-car
salesman and part-time foot reflexologist, was announced this week. They are being
held under Singapore's tough Internal Security Act.
In support of its allegations, the Singaporean ministry also released copies of maps,
photographs, a reconnaissance report and other notes and documents that officials
said were recovered from three of the arrested men.
The latest details supplied by Singapore reveal the extent to which the combined
efforts of U.S. and regional intelligence agencies have been able to penetrate the cells
of al Qaeda's Southeast Asian allies. They also show how audacious and far-reaching
these cadres have become.
While some of the targets contemplated by Isamuddin and his colleagues were meant
to further al Qaeda's campaign against the West, other potential targets were
selected to create instability that militants could exploit in a bid to overthrow existing
governments, officials said.
Among the projects contemplated by the groups, officials said, were attacks on
pipelines in Singapore that transport water from the island's northern neighbor,
Malaysia. The militants also considered blowing up Singapore's Defense Ministry.
"The aim was to create a situation in Malaysia and Singapore conducive to
overthrowing the Malaysian government and making Malaysia an Islamic state," the
Home Affairs Ministry reported. "The attacks on key Singapore installations would be
portrayed as acts of aggression by the Malaysian government, thereby generating
animosity and distrust between Malaysia and Singapore."
Isamuddin's strategy was to foment ethnic strife between Singapore's majority
Chinese community and the majority Muslim population of Malaysia, creating "a
situation which would make Muslims respond to calls for jihad," the officials said.
For this particular plot, Isamuddin drew upon members of the Jemaah Islamiah
organization in Singapore and Malaysia, which he headed and had steered
increasingly toward armed activities and away from traditional Islamic proselytizing,
officials said.
Intelligence officials say Jemaah Islamiah is a militant network operating primarily in
Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, headed by radical Indonesian cleric Abubakar
Baasyir, who runs a Muslim boarding school in central Java. Earlier this year,
Singapore's senior minister, Lee Kuan Yew, labeled Isamuddin as "Baasyir's
right-hand man." Baasyir has denied any terrorist connections.
At the same time that Isamuddin was plotting against targets in Singapore, he had
bolder objectives in mind. According to officials, Isamuddin was seeking to coordinate
the activities of his Jemaah Islamiah network with Muslim radicals in Thailand and
Muslim separatists in the southern Philippines in a regional alliance called Rabitatul
Mujaheddin.
"The objective was to unify the Islamic militant groups in the region, with the ultimate
goal of realizing an Islamic state comprising Malaysia, Indonesia and [the southern
Philippine island of] Mindanao, following which Singapore and Brunei would eventually
be absorbed," the Home Affairs Ministry reported.
The alliance sought to promote cooperation among the separate militant groups in
obtaining arms, training and financial support, as well as conducting terrorist attacks,
officials said. A central committee established by Isamuddin included leaders of the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) from the Philippines and a militant group based
in Narathiwat in southern Thailand, the officials said. The central committee met
secretly three times in 1999 and 2000.
One example of regional cooperation was military training, officials said. They said
one of the Jemaah Islamiah suspects arrested in August, Habibullah, had attended
the MILF's camp on Mindanao in 1995, 1996 and 1997, learning how to use guns,
make explosives and conduct ambushes. He later organized tours for Jemaah
Islamiah members to the MILF's Abu Bakr camp and raised money in Singapore for
the Philippine separatist group.
The statement by the Home Affairs Ministry said Jemaah Islamiah considered the
MILF to be a crucial ally, and provided funds in return for combat training at Abu Bakr
camp. Since 1997, Indonesian militants were reportedly allowed to run their own
facility within the larger camp, officials said.
Jemaah Islamiah's Singapore wing played a significant role in financing militants
around the region, officials said. The Home Affairs Ministry said many members in
Singapore contributed 5 percent of their salaries to the organization, with half the
proceeds forwarded to Jemaah Islamiah operations in Malaysia and Indonesia. Within
Singapore, the group used the funds for local cells' operating expenses and to finance
military training.
Malaysian members of Jemaah Islamiah, meanwhile, offered military training to their
Singaporean counterparts, including 14 of the suspects arrested in August, officials
said. This training, in Gunung Pulai and Kulai, was limited in the first half of the 1990s
to physical fitness, but by the late 1990s participants were being schooled in ambush
technique and guerrilla warfare. By 2000, courses at Kota Tinggi included urban
warfare and reconnaissance.
These skills were put to use in Singapore during the last three years, when Jemaah
Islamiah members surveilled water pipelines, the airport at Changi, the radar station at
Biggin Hill, the Jurong Island chemical complex and the Defense Ministry, officials
said. The operatives also observed possible American targets, including a warship at
Changi naval base and a pub frequented by U.S. servicemen. Singaporean officials
said no plan to attack any of these targets was ever finalized.
In Indonesia today, police identified a terrorism suspect detained Tuesday in South
Jakarta as Seyam Reda, 40, a German citizen from Saudi Arabia working as a
journalist for al-Jazeera, an Arabic-language news network based in Qatar. He was
originally detained for violating his tourist visa by working as a journalist. Investigators
are pursuing the possibility that he is Abu Daud, a man wanted by both Singapore
and Malaysia for links to international terrorism, a spokesman for the Indonesian
police, Saleh Saaf, said.
Police so far have found no evidence linking Reda to al Qaeda or Omar al-Farouq, an
al Qaeda operative seized by Indonesian authorities in June and turned over to U.S.
authorities, Saaf said.
Documents and videotapes showing what appeared to be Indonesians or Malaysians
training to use automatic weapons in a rural area were found in Reda's home, he said.
Meanwhile, in the Philippines, an Indonesian operative of Jemaah Islamiah told police
of the group's plan to bomb Western targets as part of a jihad, or holy war, intended to
establish an Islamic state in the region. Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, jailed in Manila for
illegal possession of explosives, made the disclosure in a statement to police in July,
a copy of which the Reuters news agency obtained today.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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