RP-trained militants replacing al-Qaeda leaders

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists in Asia have quickly replaced captured leaders with a new operations chief and top bomb makers who are plotting deadly attacks on international hotels and other Western targets, intelligence officials told The Associated Press.

The arrest of Hambali — Osama bin Laden’s alleged point man in Asia — and the cracking of a terror ring blamed for bombings in Bali did temporarily disrupt the loose Jemaah Islamiyah network, a senior Indonesian intelligence adviser said.

But the leadership vacuum left by Hambali’s Aug. 11 arrest in Thailand was filled within three weeks, said the adviser, even as the Islamic militant group carried out a recruiting drive in Indonesia - already home to about 2,000 of its 3,000 members.

The suspected terrorists, fearing infiltration, are avoiding cell phone conversations and conducting training outside the country, mostly in the southern jungles of the Philippines, Indonesian and Filipino officials told AP.

Seven militants recently arrested in Indonesia’s North Sulawesi region admitted plans to train with the Philippines’ Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Mindanao, said Brig. Gen. Victor Corpus.

Training detected in a vast, marshy section of Mindanao prompted the Army to launch an offensive last February, Corpus said.

On Jolo island in Sulu, escaped Filipino and Indonesian hostages also reported two Indonesians, believed to be Jemaah Islamiyah operatives, training about 100 Philippine recruits in explosive-making and combat this year.

The Indonesian adviser and other Asian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, outlined the terrorism threat in the region before next week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Bangkok, Thailand. Combating terrorists will be a major topic for leaders of the 21 Pacific Rim nations at the meeting.

With terrorist threats in mind, security will be tight for the APEC summit Monday and Tuesday — 20,000 troops and policemen, fighter jet escorts, mice to test food for poison.

In AP interviews, the Asian intelligence officials identified the three top new Jemaah Islamiyah leaders: Zulkarnaen, an Indonesian believed to have replaced Hambali as operations chief; Azahari bin Husin, a Malaysian academic and reputed top bomb maker; and Dulmatin, an Indonesian allegedly involved in the Bali blasts, which killed 202 people a year ago.

The three are believed to have been key players in the Aug. 5 bombing at Jakarta’s JW Marriott hotel that killed 12 people.

Zulkarnaen leads an elite squad of militants called Laskar Khos, or special force, according to Lt. Gen. Erwin Mapasseng, Indonesia’s chief of detectives. He said the group had been recruited from some 300 Indonesians who trained in the past in Afghanistan and the Philippines.

Azahari, 46, known as "Dr. Azahari," fled Malaysia in 2001 and is believed to be hiding on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, a Malaysian official told AP.

Authorities have singled out Dulmatin as the man who allegedly detonated the Bali blasts. He is also said to have built some of the explosives used in a series of Christmas Eve bombings in Indonesia in 2000.

The three men held a meeting in March on Sebatik — a small island off the coast of Borneo — to map out what they see as a holy war, according to the Indonesian intelligence adviser, who said it’s unknown whether Hambali also attended. Jemaah Islamiyah’s purported goal is to set up a pan-Islamic state in Southeast Asia.

Forty-eight people have been selected to carry out attacks in three stages between December and April in Indonesia, said the adviser, a former government official who cited sources close to militants in the terror network.

Authorities have detected plans to bomb a tourist hotel in one or all of the Indonesian cities of Jakarta, Surabaya and Medan in December and January, he said. Terrorists also have plans to target a US bank in Indonesia in February or March, the adviser said, adding authorities have learned of a third stage of attacks in April but have been unable to identify targets.

Sidney Jones, a Jemaah Islamiyah expert who wrote a report on the organization for the International Crisis Group, said progress has been made in capturing and killing militants and stopping terror plots.

"The problem is the organization is simply larger and more sophisticated than anyone believed," Jones said.

More than 200 Jemaah Islamiyah members have been arrested in five countries.

Meantime, Jemaah Islamiyah is reorganizing in three main Indonesian regions - Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Sumatra - said the intelligence adviser.

And Indonesian militants are in the middle of a recruiting drive - the third since 1998 - with radicals posing as food vendors and other merchants outside mosques to persuade people to join their jihad, the Indonesian adviser said.

Indonesian intelligence agents are growing beards, donning robes and attending prayer sessions and Quran readings to try to infiltrate the networks.

Cash believed to come from al-Qaeda to finance attacks is hand carried to Indonesia via Malaysia and arms and explosives are entering Indonesia through the largely unpatrolled waterways between Mindanao island in the southern Philippines and Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, two intelligence officials said. A typical bombing costs about US$10,000, the intelligence adviser said.

Investigations into Jemaah Islamiyah have exposed links between Islamic militants in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore.