Hambali's plan to attack Australia misfired: Report

Hambali's plan to attack Australia misfired: Report

Agencies, Sydney, Australia

Hambali, Southeast Asia's most dangerous man until he was
captured in Thailand last year, wanted to attack Australia but
failed to establish a local network capable of staging bombings,
it was reported here on Friday.

The Australian newspaper said Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) interrogators had put 200 questions to Hambali on behalf of
the Australian Federal Police and Canberra's spy agency,
Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), about the
intentions of the Asian terror network Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) in
Australia.

The responses confirmed the belief of both agencies that the
JI cell covering Australia, known as Mantiqi 4, was the least
developed and operationally capable of JI's four regions, the
paper said.

Australian authorities believe they have disrupted the
Australian wing that Hambali had difficulty knocking into shape.

The answers given to Australian authorities revealed that
Hambali had almost no success in establishing a local Anglo-Saxon
network and instead relied on two Indonesian brothers.

The one exception was alleged to be a local man who could not
be legally named, but who has been under the sustained scrutiny
of authorities.

One brother fled Australia in the days after the Sept. 11 2001
attacks in the United States and remains on the run, while
another was deported from Australia because of immigration
irregularities.

Hambali and his wife had been in hiding among the Thai Islamic
minority in the city of Ayuthaya, less than 100 kilometers from
Bangkok, when they were caught by U.S. and Thai agents last
August.

Hambali is now being held at the U.S. military base on the
Indian Ocean outpost of Diego Garcia along with two other key al-
Qaeda operatives, its chief of operations Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
and the confessed organizer of the Sept. 11 2001 terrorist
attacks, Ramzi bin-al-Shibh, The Australian said.

He is alleged to have been the al-Qaeda leader who gave the
go-ahead for the Bali bombings which killed 202 people including
88 Australians in October, 2002.

The CIA have not so far allowed direct access to Hambali
either by Australian agencies or by officials of his native
Indonesia.