Author: Ellen Nakashima and Alan
Sipress
Publication: Washington Post
Date: February 12, 2003
Handbook Required Approval for Attack
Like Bali Bombings
In Chapter 39 of a handbook meant
to be destroyed long before it was found, Indonesian police said, investigators
discovered a fundamental rule of Jemaah Islamiah, the Southeast Asian terrorist
network: All armed operations must be approved by the group's emir, or
supreme commander.
Investigators say they believe the
emir is Abubakar Baasyir, a white-bearded cleric arrested in October. He
has repeatedly denied involvement with terrorism.
The half-inch-thick, hard-bound
volume, written for Jemaah Islamiah members and bearing Arabic writing
on its cover, is but one item in a growing inventory of evidence that investigators
say links Baasyir to a series of terrorist attacks, prime among them the
October bombings in Bali that killed nearly 200 people. Police allege they
now also have details of a May meeting at which five Indonesian militants
who plotted the Bali attack received Baasyir's blessing for their plan.
Based on these discoveries, a senior
police official said last week, "police are aiming" to formally name Baasyir
as a suspect in the Bali bombings. They continue to firm up evidence and
likely would prosecute him under emergency anti-terror regulations issued
by President Megawati Sukarnoputri after the bombings.
Although Asian and Western intelligence
officials have warned of Jemaah Islamiah for more than a year, police here
said they were convinced of its existence only after discovering the handbook
during a December raid in Solo, a town in the central part of Java, Indonesia's
main island..
In that operation, police entered
the home of a Bali bomb suspect named Saad, also known as Achmad Roichan.
He escaped, but investigators retrieved a pile of documents on the second
floor of the house, which doubled as the group's operational headquarters,
police said. A key find was the carefully bound, photocopied manual. Besides
laying out the rule on armed operations, it described Jemaah Islamiah members'
obligations and the network's structure, from the emir to the network's
three geographical zones in Southeast Asia, each with its own particular
function.
One zone comprised Malaysia and
Singapore, intended to be where members earned their livelihoods. The second,
covering eastern Indonesia and the southern Philippines, was a training
area; the third, made up of western and central Indonesia, was to be the
theater for armed attacks.
In December, police in the central
Java town of Klaten arrested an alleged top network strategist known as
Mukhlas, the police official said, and in interrogating him, found how
highly the network members valued the handbook.
Mukhlas initially denied the network's
existence. But when shown the book, he was stunned. He sat in silence,
arms folded, for one hour "because he was deeply shocked," the senior police
official said. "He didn't even open the book."
When Mukhlas finally spoke, he was
livid. "How did you find this book?" he demanded. "This is a failure by
Saad!" he shouted, the police official recounted. According to the guidebook,
a member is obliged to protect other members and the organization by destroying
all evidence. Failure to do so can result in a death sentence, the book
said, according to the police official.
Mukhlas told police the emir was
Baasyir. This statement, together with the book's instruction that the
emir must approve jihad operations, has become a key piece of evidence
against Baasyir in the Bali investigation.
Police contend that approval for
the bombings was given last May, when the Bali plot operatives held a 40-minute
meeting in Solo. They met in the rented house of Imam Samudra, who police
contend directed the bombings at two nightclubs in Bali's popular Kuta
entertainment district.
Also at the meeting were Mukhlas;
Mubarok, who police say helped finance the attack; Mukhlas's brother, Ali
Imron, who confessed to helping assemble the explosives; and his other
brother, Amrozi, who police say has confessed to buying the van that exploded
in front of the Sari Club. Some Indonesians use only one name.
Their guest of honor was Baasyir.
Amrozi, the official said, collected Baasyir at his home in the city and
drove him to the meeting.
The men did not discuss plot specifics,
the police official said. Rather, Baasyir's role was to approve the operation
"in principle."
"The details, how to carry it off,
is the role of the field operatives," he said.
Today in Bali, police staged a reconstruction
of the bombing at Paddy's bar, the other club hit in the October attack.
Ali Imron, a thin man with a gap in his front teeth, strapped on a black
vest packed with simulated pipe bombs to demonstrate before reporters how
an operative set off the explosives and blew himself up in the process
-- the first recorded suicide bombing attack in Indonesia. The suspect
asserted that the group was not acting at the order of anyone other than
Imam Samudra and Mukhlas. Ali Imron also said he was "regretful" and begged
forgiveness of the victims' families.
Police have held Baasyir since October
on charges that he plotted to assassinate Megawati and was involved in
a string of church bombings on Christmas Eve 2000. Police contend he may
still be directing the network from jail. In custody, Baasyir has the right
to see lawyers and family members. "There is a possibility that the visitors
might be visiting him to get the approval of a future project," the police
official said. "They don't need to have a long discussion."
The senior official said investigators
also have recently uncovered more evidence of Baasyir's links with Osama
bin Laden's al Qaeda network, in the form of meetings with a top operative
from the network.
The police official said that on
Dec. 22, 2000, Baasyir met Kuwaiti-born Omar Farouq, a senior al Qaeda
operative arrested in June by Indonesian investigators and turned over
to the CIA.
According to witness testimony that
police have collected, Baasyir traveled to Ambon, the capital of the Maluku
islands in eastern Indonesia, at Farouq's invitation to preach at a prayer
meeting. Baasyir stayed at Farouq's home in the city for several days before
returning home to Java, the police official said.
Farouq has told his U.S. interrogators
that Baasyir was involved in plotting several terrorist attacks, according
to intelligence experts.
Through his lawyer, Mihdan, Baasyir
recently repeated his denial that he knows Farouq and also denied having
held any meetings with the alleged plotters before or after the Bali bombing.
He said he would like to "confront" the plotters to refute their allegations.
