Jamaah Islamiyah terror group still major threat despite arrests: Analysts<\/p>\n
Lawrence Bartlett, Agence France-Presse, Kuala Lumpur<\/p>\n
The Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist network remains capable of
\nmounting major attacks in Southeast Asia despite the arrest of
\nseveral suspects in the Bali bombings, analysts said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Indonesian police have named one of those arrested, Imam
\nSamudra, as the \"mastermind\" behind the blasts which killed more
\nthan 190 people last month, but terrorism experts say he was more
\nlikely a mid-level operative.<\/p>\n
\"There could be another 10 people like Imam Samudra, at his
\nlevel, and that would not be known by him or anyone who was not
\nhigher up in the hierarchy than he is,\" said Clive Williams,
\ndirector of terrorism studies at the Australian National
\nUniversity.<\/p>\n
\"JI is very security conscious and one cell will not know
\nabout another cell.\"<\/p>\n
Any of these cells could be launched into a new attack by JI
\nleaders still at large, Williams told AFP, including operational
\ncommander Riduan Isamuddin, commonly known as Hambali.<\/p>\n
Some reports recently have suggested that Hambali had been
\nreplaced by an Indonesian known as Mukhlas, a brother of one of
\nthe arrested Bali bomb suspects, Amrozi.<\/p>\n
But Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside al-Qaeda, said Mukhlas
\nnow headed JI's operations in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia
\nwhile \"Hambali has gone one step higher\".<\/p>\n
Hambali's stature had increased both within Osama bin Laden's
\nal-Qaeda group, where he is a member of the shura (consultative
\ncouncil) and JI, where he is al-Qaeda's pointman for Southeast
\nAsia, Gunaratna told AFP.<\/p>\n
\"It is very likely that they will plan an even bigger
\noperation unless Hambali is arrested.\"<\/p>\n
Despite being at the top of the wanted list in several
\ncountries, Hambali has eluded capture and most analysts say his
\nwhereabouts are unknown, suggesting he could be anywhere from
\nIndonesia itself to Bangladesh or the Pakistan-Afghanistan
\nborder.<\/p>\n
Gunaratna, however, says emphatically that Hambali is in
\nsouthern Thailand -- a claim likely to outrage the Thai
\ngovernment, which has already angrily rejected reports that an
\nFBI investigation found the Bali attacks were planned at a
\nJanuary meeting in the south of the country.<\/p>\n
Wherever he is, analysts agree that his freedom dampens any
\neuphoria over the arrests in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
\"I wouldn't want to diminish the excellent efforts of police
\ninvolved, but of course you don't know how much of the
\norganization you've affected up to now,\" said Williams.<\/p>\n
Gunaratna, who is an analyst with a number of international
\nsecurity think-tanks, was more critical of the police operation.<\/p>\n
\"After Bali the Indonesian security forces are targeting only
\nthe JI and al-Qaeda members directly connected with the Bali
\noperation.<\/p>\n
\"They are not targeting JI as an organization and as a result
\nof that JI's support and operational infrastructure remains fully
\nintact in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
\"As such if JI want they could always mount another operation
\ninside Indonesia or use Indonesia as a launching pad to strike
\nthe neighborhood.\"<\/p>\n
Gunaratna said, however, that the link with al-Qaeda was
\ncrucial and that \"JI by itself did not have the capability to
\nmake a bomb of this magnitude in Bali, they had to have external
\nassistance.\"<\/p>\n
He named Syafullah, a senior al-Qaeda operative from Yemen, as
\na major suspect in the Bali blast along with an Indonesian named
\nSyawal and a Malaysian identified as Zubair.<\/p>\n
Indonesian police, asked about a Time magazine report naming
\nthe three, said on Monday that none of the arrested suspects had
\nso far mentioned them.<\/p>\n
Their whereabouts are unknown.<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/jamaah-islamiyah-terror-group-still-major-threat-despite-arrests-analysts-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }