Imam Samudra: Portrait of a bomber?

Imam Samudra, who has several aliases, the main suspect in the Oct. 12 Bali bombing who was arrested on Thursday, was known as an intelligent person among his friends.

According to the Police, he was the field coordinator who chaired a series of meetings in Central Java to execute the Bali bombings.

In addition, he was allegedly involved in a series of bombings during the 2000 Christmas Eve terror in several cities in Indonesia.

Born Abdul Aziz into a modest family in Lopang Gede village in Serang, West Java, 32 years ago, he became known as one of the clever students in the elementary school in his town.

He acquired the skills to assemble bombs while undergoing a military training in Afghanistan.

Imam is a university graduate who majored in computer engineering and he once taught in a university in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and married to a Malaysian.

He left for Malaysia in the early 1990s and came back to Indonesia during Idul Fitri holidays in 2000, with his wife and three children.

Imam is also believed to be a top member of Jamaah Islamiyah, an extremist group in Southeast Asia which the UN put on its official terrorist list as a closely linked group to the terrorist network al-Qaeda, led by Osama Bin Laden. --JP