Asia Security
Monitor
No. 43, August 19, 2003 Details on capture of SE Asia al Qaeda leader;
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August 17: According to Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the suspected mastermind of al Qaeda's bombing campaign in Southeast Asia has been captured north of Bangkok, the Associated Press reports. Hambali, an Indonesian whose real name is Riduan Isamuddin, was plotting terror attacks against the upcoming October APEC summit that President Bush is due to attend. He was also working to make Thailand a base for terror operations. As the operations chief of Jemaah Islamiah (JI), Hambali is suspected of organizing every major act of terrorism in Southeast Asia during the past few years. It is believed he orchestrated the October suicide bombings in Bali, Indonesia, that killed 202 people as well as the recent bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta. The 39-year-old Islamic cleric, who was turned over to U.S. authorities, is said to have trained under Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in the 1990s and is reported to have been close to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the September 11 organizer captured earlier this year. He is also believed to have hosted a meeting of senior al Qaeda operatives, including two September 11 hijackers, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in January 2000. U.S. officials say Hambali is the only man from Southeast Asia to sit on al Qaeda's military committee. He has been wanted since at least 2000. His capture came as a result of JI members that were detained in Singapore who told investigators of his whereabouts, apparently as retribution from a dispute over money. August 19: The Associated Press reports that hundreds of militants based in Pakistan stormed two towns in southeast Afghanistan, overrunning police stations and killing at least nine police officers. The attackers are believed to be a mix of Taliban guerrillas, al Qaeda fighters and supporters of renegade Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Both attacks took place in Paktika province, which lies near the Pakistan border. In the first attack, Afghan security officials say scores of militants fought their way into a district police station (200 kilometers southeast of the capital, Kabul) with heavy machine guns and rockets. At least 22 people died in the gun battle. Just hours later a militant force, estimated at 200 men, burned down a police station in another Paktika province village. The attacks are the latest in a week of intensified violence in Afghanistan, during which some 60 people were killed in a single 24-hour period. Amid the escalation in violence, there are reports that the Taliban's fugitive leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, has improved coordination among his commanders, dividing Afghanistan into military areas of control. The Associated Press also reports that the Kabul government has removed the governors of the key Pashtun tribal provinces of Zabol and Kandahar, where anti-government insurgency has been growing. In addition, assaults on international aid workers continue. A group of 20 gunmen raided a mine-clearing group's compound in a province west of Kabul, beating five employees with rifle butts. On Monday, suspected Taliban insurgents killed at least nine police in an ambush in Logar province's Kharwar village, about 55 miles south of Kabul. |
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Copyright
© 2003, American Foreign Policy Council.
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