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.