CNN, July 10, 2002 Posted: 2:29 AM HKT (1829 GMT)
Intelligence report: Bin Laden sought Indonesian base
Counterterrorism experts say he also checked out Yemen
From Maria Ressa
CNN Correspondent
MANILA, Philippines (CNN) -- Intelligence officials tell CNN that Osama bin
Laden wanted to move the base of operations for his al Qaeda terrorist
network from Afghanistan to Southeast Asia in 2000.
The plan, according to these officials' intelligence report, was to move the base to
Aceh in Indonesia, where members of the Free Aceh movement (or GAM) were
working with al Qaeda.
Aceh is a remote Muslim province in which rebels have fought for a separate Islamic
state for decades. Bin Laden's No. 2, Egyptian Ayman Al-Zawahiri visited Aceh with al
Qaeda's former military chief, Mohammed Atef, in June 2000.
"Both of them were impressed by the lack of security, the support and extent of
Muslim population," reads the intelligence report made available to CNN. "This visit
was part of a wider strategy of shifting the base of Osama bin Laden's terrorist
operations from the subcontinent to Southeast Asia."
Al-Zawahiri and Atef were accompanied by two men now in custody: Kuwaiti Omar
al-Faruq and Indonesian Agus Dwikarna. Asian intelligence sources tell CNN that
al-Faruq was al Qaeda's senior representative in Southeast Asia.
United States sources confirm that al-Faruq was arrested by Indonesian authorities on
June 5 and now is at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
U.S. and Asian sources say al-Faruq's name and telephone number were found in a
phonebook recovered in Pakistan during the arrest of former al Qaeda operations chief
Abu Zubayda.
That same phone number, according to Philippine intelligence sources, was found in
the mobile phone of Dwikarna, who guided the al Qaeda members during their visit to
Aceh.
Dwikarna was arrested in the Philippines in March.
"We have found out for sure that Agus Dwikarna has direct links to al Qaeda," Andrea
Domingo, the Philippines Commissioner of Immigration tells CNN.
"The most important thing is to view this as an international organization that has a lot
of resources up to now and that is still alive and operating at very different levels."
An Indonesian police document obtained by CNN says Dwikarna was working with
militants who plotted to assassinate Indonesia's President Megawati Sukarnoputri -- a
plan that was later aborted.
Counterterrorist experts say bin Laden was looking for a place to which to move his
operations as long as five years ago, and that in 1997 he sent a delegation to Yemen.
As in Indonesia, nothing came of that visit.
But for investigators, details of the Aceh visit might help unravel the terrorist network
left behind.
© 2001 Cable News Network LP, LLLP
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