Malaysian bomb fugitive's life in the shadows<\/p>\n
Mark Bendeich, Reuters\/Kuala Lumpur<\/p>\n
Azahari bin Husin, one of Asia's most-wanted Islamic militants
\nand suspected bomb mastermind, is an expert at suffering. It has
\nbeen his companion for years.<\/p>\n
The Malaysian electronics expert, reported to have blown
\nhimself up during a raid by Indonesian police on Wednesday, is
\nthought to have played a hand in killing hundreds of people since
\nhe enlisted to the cause of militant Islam in the early 1990s.<\/p>\n
He leaves behind an informal charge sheet that is a roll-call
\nof some of Asia's most deadly recent terrorist attacks, including
\nthe 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people on the Indonesian
\nresort island.<\/p>\n
He is also accused of helping plot the 2003 suicide bombing at
\nJakarta's JW Marriott Hotel, killing 12, and last year's bombing
\noutside the Australian embassy in Indonesia, killing 10.<\/p>\n
Suffering has surrounded Azahari in other ways as well.<\/p>\n
The former university lecturer's wife wages a lonely battle
\nwith throat cancer and his two young children grow up in Malaysia
\nunder the constant shadow of suspicion and police surveillance.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for his wife, Noraini, declined to comment on
\nWednesday, saying the family was awaiting results of DNA tests on
\nthe remains of the seven militants killed in the raid in East
\nJava province, Malaysia's state news agency reported.<\/p>\n
Last month, when Reuters tried to call on Noraini at her
\nmother's house in a drab industrial area northeast of Kuala
\nLumpur, she was said by her family to be too ill to speak.<\/p>\n
Her neighbors, though, told a familiar tale of bewilderment:
\nhow could a man they regarded as quiet and unassuming turn out to
\nbe a bomber?<\/p>\n
\"He behaved as a normal person so it was a surprise to read he
\nis a bomber,\" said Haji Maamour, a 65-year-old retired factory
\nworker who lives directly across the street from Noraini.<\/p>\n
\"He liked to jog, but he mostly kept to himself unless
\ngreeted. He's quite smart and sometimes we talked about science
\nbut never about making bombs,\" he added.<\/p>\n
Azahari, thought to be in his 40s, was a regular visitor to
\nNoraini's family home in Ulu Kelang before he slipped into the
\narms of militant network Jemaah Islamiyah in the early 1990s.<\/p>\n
At around that time or sometime before, says one Asian
\nsecurity source, he was quietly suffering from depression.<\/p>\n
\"He had a tough experience when he was preparing for his
\nthesis and he was in depression and was approached by some
\npeople,\" the source said, declining to give further details.<\/p>\n
Azahari holds a doctorate from the University of Reading in
\nBritain. He studied for the doctorate in the late 1980s.<\/p>\n
He joined Jemaah Islamiyah, which wants to set up an Islamic
\nstate in parts of Southeast Asia, in 1993, and attended rebel
\nmilitary-training camps in the southern Philippines, then plagued
\nby a Muslim insurgency, and in Afghanistan, the source said.<\/p>\n
While training in the Philippines, on Mindanao island, Azahari
\ngot to know another Malaysian who was to later share top billing
\non the region's most-wanted list, Noordin M. Top.<\/p>\n
Noordin, like Azahari, had only recently embraced militant
\nIslam and the cause of Jemaah Islamiyah. Noordin also had
\npersonal demons, though his were financial, the security source
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
Together they went on to become the scourge of Southeast Asian
\nsecurity forces, evading capture -- unlike their mentor, expert
\nbomb-maker Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, who was
\narrested in Thailand in 2003 and is now in U.S. custody.<\/p>\n
If Azahari is still alive, security forces would prefer him to
\nbe captured and questioned like Hambali -- and possibly help them
\nilluminate more of the shadowy world of Jemaah Islamiyah.<\/p>",
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