Threat Is Called 'Very Dangerous' : Roots of Qaeda Go Deep in Asia
International Herald Tribune
January 21, 2002
Michael Richardson 

As Southeast Asian intelligence and law-enforcement agencies intensify their crackdown on extremists linked to Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization they are finding that the Asian roots of the Qaeda network are much deeper and more dangerous than previously suspected, officials and analysts say.

"The linkages are real and very dangerous," said a senior foreign diplomat based in Southeast Asia.

In the past few days, the Philippine police, acting on information from Singapore, said they had arrested a Qaeda-trained Indonesian munitions expert only hours before he was to board a flight to Thailand.

As a result of his arrest and interrogation, the police uncovered more than a ton of explosives, detonators and other bomb-making materials that they said were meant to be used in attacks on Singapore.

"The explosives were powerful enough to level a block of houses," said the chief of the national Philippine police, Leandro Mendoza.

The alleged bomb maker, Fathur Rohman Ghozi, will be charged in Manila this week with illegal possession of firearms and explosives, and with being involved in the bombing of a local commuter train station, killing more than 20 people in December 2000.

The Philippine police said that Mr. Ghozi had admitted traveling to the Philippines to buy arms and explosives since 1996, and to having close contacts with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front — one of several Muslim groups that has been fighting to create an independent Islamic state in the south of the predominantly Christian Philippines.

The front, which claims to have 12,500 armed fighters, is engaged in peace talks with the Philippine government. But the military has accused it of giving sanctuary to gunmen of the Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf rebels in the southern Philippines. Abu Sayyaf is now the focus of a joint anti-terrorist operation involving the United States and Philippine armed forces.

Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism specialist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, said that Mr. bin Laden, whom the U.S. government has named as its prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, developed ties with both the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Abu Sayyaf, starting in the early 1990s.

"Osama developed a strong relationship with the Abu Sayyaf founder, Abdurajak Janjalani, and eventually sent his brother-in-law, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, to the Philippines to establish a Qaeda presence in the region," Mr. Gunaratna said. "Many leaders and members of the Abu Sayyaf and Moro Islamic Liberation Front trained in Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, and several Qaeda trainers are believed to have conducted training courses in the Philippines."

Under the code name Mike, the Singapore authorities said, Mr. Ghozi and a second foreigner of Arab extraction calling himself Sammy went to Singapore in October and began to make preparations for possible terrorist attacks on United States military personnel, naval ships and companies, as well as the British High Commission, the Israeli Embassy and the Australian High Commission in Singapore.

They worked with Jemaah Islamiyah, a clandestine organization operating Qaeda cells in the island-state, Singapore officials said.

Singapore disclosed on Jan. 11 that it had arrested 15 Singaporean Muslims in December for terrorism-related activities, that eight of the thirteen people still detained had received training in Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, and that their activities in support of terrorist targeting in Singapore had begun as early as 1997.

Since Dec. 9, the police in Malaysia have arrested 15 suspected members of a separate militant group with alleged ties to Al Qaeda.

The suspects in both countries are being held under internal security laws that allow lengthy detention without trial. The nature of any links between the groups in Malaysia and Singapore is unclear. But Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad of Malaysia has warned that Muslim extremists in Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia aim to overthrow governments and establish an Islamic republic linking the three countries.

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