Azahari in touch with family while on the run

Ridwan Max Sijabat and Indra Harsaputra, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Surabaya

Malaysian terrorist Azahari bin Husin, who was responsible for a series of bomb attacks that killed hundreds of innocent people in Indonesia, appeared to have kept in touch with his family during his years as a fugitive.

Personal documents found by police in the house where he was killed in a gunfight last Wednesday revealed that Azahari had communicated with his family and siblings by letter and telephone.

The police discovered dozens of international phone cards, letters and a diary belonging to Azahari, along with guns and explosives, among the rubble of his hide-out in Batu district in the East Java regency of Malang. The building was severely damaged in what police believe was a suicide bombing by Azahari and his operative Arman.

In his last letter to his wife, Azahari asked her to pray for his efforts to wage a jihad so that he could die as a martyr. The letter, which was found inside the diary, never reached his wife in Malaysia.

"To die in such a way will assure me of a place in heaven and enable me to bring 70 members of our extended family. Remember me to our son and take care of him," the letter, written in Malay, reads.

Azahari and his compatriot Noordin M. Top, two of the most- wanted operatives of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Southeast Asia terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah, are believed to have masterminded a series of bloody attacks in Indonesia, including the 2002 Bali bombings, Jakarta's JW Marriott Hotel blast in 2003, and the attack on the Australian Embassy in 2004. Police have also linked them to last month's suicide bombings in three Bali restaurants.

Police also found a letter from Azahari's wife Wan Noraini Jusoh, expressing her fears that he could be killed at anytime. Noraini and their son also advised Azahari to take care of himself and she said their son frequently uttered the word "grave" in his sleep.

Azahari's widow regarded the death of her husband as an expression of God's will.

"She has come to accept his death," Noraini's brother Wan Kamaruddin quoted her as telling AFP.

Speaking outside her home in a suburb of Kuala Lumpur, Komaruddin said: "She accepts it as fate (decided by God). As a Muslim, we have to accept this."

Azahari, who liked adventure and watching cowboy movies, was a respected big brother in his family, and the mathematics expert encouraged his nine siblings to study hard.

Azahari's 45-year-old sister, Suraya, cherished the good side of his childhood and adulthood saying he loved the outdoors and once hitchhiked on a lorry from the premier Malay College Kuala Kangsar, where he studied, to his home in Jasin as a teenager.

She said her brother was intelligent, competitive at school and liked adventure. Azahari studied at the English-medium SK Inggeris and SM Inggeris in Jasin and moved to MCKK when he was in Form Three. He then studied in Australia and took a PhD in mathematics in Britain.