Al-Qaeda cell leader’s aide in RP before Dec. 30 bombings

The right-hand man of the founder of the Islamist group Jemaah Islamiyah may also have participated in the Dec. 30, 2000 bombings in Metro Manila as his presence in the country shortly before the blasts was revealed by confessed mastermind Fathur Roman Al-Ghozi.

The Indonesian suspect said Riduan Isamuddin, alias Hambali — reportedly the most trusted aide of Jemaah Islamiyah founder Abu Bakar Ba’asvir — was in the country before the Rizal Day bombings that killed 22 people and wounded at least a hundred others.

In his fourth affidavit submitted to the Department of Justice (DOJ) panel conducting the preliminary investigation of the case, Al-Ghozi admitted he met with his Malaysian-based leader "Pais" here.

"Actually, we saw each other in Manila on the first week of December 2000 and he was with Hambali... who is with us in the organization," Al-Ghozi said in his affidavit.

Malaysian authorities reportedly said Abu Bakar is the "godfather" while Hambali is the "consiglieri (councilor)."

Pais and Hambali managed to slip into the country through the Ninoy Aquino International Airport easily.

"When I arrived in Manila in November 2000 I called up Pais who was in Malaysia and we agreed to meet in Manila. On the first week of December 2000, I and Muklis waited for his arrival at the NAIA. He arrived with Hambali," Al-Ghozi said.

Muklis was named by Al-Ghozi, 31, in his affidavit as the one to whom he entrusted the carrying out of the bombings aside from the main blast at the LRT station in Blumentritt, Manila.

The National Bureau of Investigation filed charges against Muklis, who was identified by witnesses as the one who left a bag in the LRT coach in the Sta. Cruz station.

Al-Ghozi said in his affidavit that he initially suggested that the target of the bombings be areas where no one was likely to get hurt, but Hambali and Pais agreed to Muklis’ suggestion raised during the meeting that they target the LRT.

He said he went to Cebu in December 2000 to buy explosives, leaving Hambali and Pais with Muklis’ group, but the two Jama’ah Islamiyah leaders had already left the country when he returned to Manila.

The Asian Times report named Hambali, 36, Indonesian-born radical Muslim preacher, as responsible for hatching a JI/al-Qaeda plan to bomb US, Australian, British and Israeli embassies in Singapore using trucks loaded with fertilizer (ammonium nitrate).

The plan to bomb the foreign embassies was reportedly drawn up after the US-led coalition against terrorism began air strikes on Afghanistan to smoke out suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, who is believed behind the Sept. 11 attacks on the US.

But Singapore authorities successfully thwarted the terror acts with the timely roundup of alleged members of the terrorist group in December 2001.

Hambali reportedly fled to Malaysia in the mid-1980s to escape a Suharto-ordered crackdown on Islamic militants. He went to Afghanistan in 1987 to help fight the Soviet occupation.

Al-Ghozi has denied links to Bin Laden, and has also denied responsibility for the bombings aside from the LRT blast on Rizal Day, 2000.

Al-Ghozi had confessed that the Dec. 30, 2000 bombings were unleashed to exact revenge on the government of former President Joseph Estrada, who had launched an all-out war against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and who was at the time in the midst of his impeachment trial.

Eventually police conducted raids of Muslim communities in Metro Manila to ferret out the bombers.