Author: Chris Brummitt
Publication: Yahoo News
Date: May 31, 2008
URL: http://beta.ph.news.yahoo.com/ap/20080531/tap-as-gen-indonesia-terror-looking-abro-64ed358.html
After months on the run, two alleged leaders
in a Southeast Asian militant group were holed up in a cheap Malaysian hotel,
ready to fly to the Middle East to link up with other Islamic extremists,
possibly in Iraq.
The pair had bribed Indonesian immigration
officials to smooth their way out of the airport in Jakarta, where they started
their journey. An Algerian gave them fake passports, airline tickets and militant
contacts in Syria.
But they never made it farther than Kuala
Lumpur. It is unclear what led police in the Malaysian capital to their room
early this year, but _ befuddled by sleep _ they did not resist arrest.
The foiled flight of Abu Husna and Agus Purwantoro,
who were sent back to Indonesia in late March, is just part of the story outlined
in police investigation reports obtained by The Associated Press.
The documents detail how the regional terror
group Jemaah Islamiyah has maintained the ability and desire to forge international
links despite a crackdown that most experts believed left it severely weakened
and isolated, with hundreds of its members behind bars.
The papers also provide rare details on the
inner workings of the network, showing how Husna and Purwantoro were able
to travel around Indonesia, using passwords to meet up with other wanted men
at mosques, bus stations and cheap restaurants before fleeing the country.
Members and associates of Jemaah Islamiyah
are blamed for a string of suicide bombings in Southeast Asia _ which have
together killed more than 240 people, most of them Western tourists _ as well
as a number of failed terror plots. The group had ties with al-Qaida and other
foreign extremists before 2002, but most experts have thought the links had
been broken since then.
"If there is a North African in Jakarta
assisting the Jemaah Islamiyah network, then that is not a good thing,"
Sidney Jones, a leading authority on Southeast Asian militants, said about
the Algerian sympathizer that the captured pair identified as "Jafar."
According to the police documents' accounts
of their interrogations, Husna and Purwantoro allegedly met with Jafar in
both Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur.
"It suggests an international network
with a base in Jakarta and raises all sorts of questions about who else might
be here," Jones said.
The investigation reports _ one each for Purwantoro
and Husna _ were given to the AP by an official close to the police probe.
The person agreed to turn over the reports only if not identified, fearing
he could be fired for releasing the papers. Together, the documents run 48
pages.
Police say the men were arrested in Malaysia
in January on their way to Syria to "link up with radical groups."
Malaysian authorities have not revealed what led them to the men, but Indonesian
police suggested the pair were caught in an operation targeting illegal migrants.
Indonesia's anti-terror squad, trained and
financed by the U.S., had been hunting Husna, 48, since early last year. That
was when arrested suspects said he attended a meeting with Jemaah Islamiyah
elders to discuss the outcome of several attacks on the eastern island of
Sulawesi between 2004 and 2006, including the beheadings of three Christian
schoolgirls.
According to the police reports, Husna admits
to being a senior member of Jemaah Islamiyah and attending the meeting, meaning
police may be able to charge him with conspiracy to commit terrorism or related
offenses.
Jones and other experts had speculated Husna
was an interim leader of the extremist network, but the reports show him taking
orders from other militants, suggesting there are higher-ranking members of
the group still on the run.
Most officials assume the group has just a
handful of active members left at large.
Purwantoro, a 38-year-old doctor, is alleged
by police to have led Jemaah Islamiyah operations on Sulawesi. The reports
say he admits organizing militant training camps on the island and helping
perpetrators of bombings, shootings and other attacks _ including the beheadings
of the schoolgirls _ flee.
Both men admit traveling in 1999 to the southern
Philippines, where they learned how to make bombs at training camps run by
Jemaah Islamiyah, the reports say. Muslim insurgents have been active in that
part of the Philippines for years.
Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim
nation, has been praised for its successful campaign against terrorism. The
last major attack was in 2005, when suicide bombers targeted three restaurants
on the resort island of Bali, killing 20 people.
But the apparent ease with which Husna and
Purwantoro were able to leave the country highlights major weaknesses in its
anti-terror defenses at a time when governments across Southeast Asia are
trying to tighten their borders.
Both men said they used a middleman, known
as a "calo," to channel money to officials at immigration offices
in Jakarta to obtain passports with little scrutiny. They did not have to
provide the full range of supporting documents, and those they did submit
were fake, according to the reports.
They also employed a calo at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta
airport so they could be whisked through passport control, the reports say.
"We went toward the immigration checkpoint,
but before we arrived there, the calo directed us to an individual who would
accompany us through the checkpoint ... so we could go through to the departure
hall with no problems," Purwantoro told investigators. He did not elaborate.
Calos are common in Indonesian government
departments that provide public services for a fee. At airports, some travelers
employ them to ensure they do not have to stand in lines, or to pay immigration
officials to ignore penalties for overstaying visas or other violations.
Immigration department spokesman Dahlan Pasaribu
said he was unable to comment on specific cases, but insisted corruption at
passport offices and border points was being eradicated.
"Short cuts are no longer allowed. It
is an order from the top," he said.
Once in Malaysia, Husna and Purwantoro met
again with Jafar and another Jemaah Islamiyah operative, this time at a KFC
restaurant. The pair received new fake passports, airline tickets to Syria
and the cell phone number of a contact there, the reports say.
Police have revealed no details about the
men's plans in the Middle East or the identity of Jafar. Jones, the analyst,
said the Algerian may be a member of al-Qaida, but stressed it was too early
to know.
Syria's location has led to speculation by
former militants and analysts that the two men may have been heading to Iraq.
U.S. officials have long charged that Syrian authorities allow their country
to be used as a staging ground by militants who sneak into Iraq to join insurgents.
Syria denies that.
Nasir Abbas, a former Jemaah Islamiyah commander
in Sulawesi who knew Purwantoro well, said he thought it likely the men were
traveling to Iraq because they believed Indonesia was no longer a suitable
venue for jihad, or holy war.
"They see Iraq as a more clear-cut case
for jihad than Indonesia," said Abbas, who now works closely with police.
"Even if they get arrested on the way, they believe that every step they
take to that goal gets them reward in heaven."