Jamaah Islamiyah terror group still major threat despite arrests: Analysts

Jamaah Islamiyah terror group still major threat despite arrests: Analysts

Lawrence Bartlett, Agence France-Presse, Kuala Lumpur

The Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist network remains capable of
mounting major attacks in Southeast Asia despite the arrest of
several suspects in the Bali bombings, analysts said on Tuesday.

Indonesian police have named one of those arrested, Imam
Samudra, as the "mastermind" behind the blasts which killed more
than 190 people last month, but terrorism experts say he was more
likely a mid-level operative.

"There could be another 10 people like Imam Samudra, at his
level, and that would not be known by him or anyone who was not
higher up in the hierarchy than he is," said Clive Williams,
director of terrorism studies at the Australian National
University.

"JI is very security conscious and one cell will not know
about another cell."

Any of these cells could be launched into a new attack by JI
leaders still at large, Williams told AFP, including operational
commander Riduan Isamuddin, commonly known as Hambali.

Some reports recently have suggested that Hambali had been
replaced by an Indonesian known as Mukhlas, a brother of one of
the arrested Bali bomb suspects, Amrozi.

But Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside al-Qaeda, said Mukhlas
now headed JI's operations in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia
while "Hambali has gone one step higher".

Hambali's stature had increased both within Osama bin Laden's
al-Qaeda group, where he is a member of the shura (consultative
council) and JI, where he is al-Qaeda's pointman for Southeast
Asia, Gunaratna told AFP.

"It is very likely that they will plan an even bigger
operation unless Hambali is arrested."

Despite being at the top of the wanted list in several
countries, Hambali has eluded capture and most analysts say his
whereabouts are unknown, suggesting he could be anywhere from
Indonesia itself to Bangladesh or the Pakistan-Afghanistan
border.

Gunaratna, however, says emphatically that Hambali is in
southern Thailand -- a claim likely to outrage the Thai
government, which has already angrily rejected reports that an
FBI investigation found the Bali attacks were planned at a
January meeting in the south of the country.

Wherever he is, analysts agree that his freedom dampens any
euphoria over the arrests in Indonesia.

"I wouldn't want to diminish the excellent efforts of police
involved, but of course you don't know how much of the
organization you've affected up to now," said Williams.

Gunaratna, who is an analyst with a number of international
security think-tanks, was more critical of the police operation.

"After Bali the Indonesian security forces are targeting only
the JI and al-Qaeda members directly connected with the Bali
operation.

"They are not targeting JI as an organization and as a result
of that JI's support and operational infrastructure remains fully
intact in Indonesia.

"As such if JI want they could always mount another operation
inside Indonesia or use Indonesia as a launching pad to strike
the neighborhood."

Gunaratna said, however, that the link with al-Qaeda was
crucial and that "JI by itself did not have the capability to
make a bomb of this magnitude in Bali, they had to have external
assistance."

He named Syafullah, a senior al-Qaeda operative from Yemen, as
a major suspect in the Bali blast along with an Indonesian named
Syawal and a Malaysian identified as Zubair.

Indonesian police, asked about a Time magazine report naming
the three, said on Monday that none of the arrested suspects had
so far mentioned them.

Their whereabouts are unknown.