JI continues to be a serious threat: US official

JI continues to be a serious threat: US official

Agence France-Presse
Jakarta

Jamaah Islamiyah continues to be a serious regional threat
despite the arrest of numerous alleged members of the terrorist
network, a senior U.S. official said Tuesday.

"We think that JI continues to be a serious regional threat,"
said the official, who requested anonymity. "It's still a vibrant
network that is throughout the region."

Numerous reputed JI members have been arrested in Indonesia
and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

They were allegedly controlled by Hambali, a fugitive
Indonesian who allegedly acted as the link between Osama bin
Laden's al-Qaeda terror network and JI.

Ali Ghufron, the man whom police say replaced Hambali as JI's
operations chief, is on trial in Bali charged with having overall
responsibility for last October's bombings that killed 202 people
on the resort island.

"We think we're making incredible progress but there's still a
long road ahead of us," the official told reporters, describing
JI as a combination of local and al-Qaeda influences.

"It's a combination of the two. It's al-Qaeda taking advantage
of local discontents, local networks, putting money into it,
sending people into it. So it's not either al-Qaeda or entirely
homegrown," the official said.

Before the Bali bombings Indonesian officials were reluctant
to admit terrorists were present in their country. Now things
have changed and there is "a good deal of confidence" in police
and the country's political will to address terrorism, the
official said.

"It no longer needs to be at the top of the list of things we
need to press them on. They're doing it. They're doing it because
they see it as in their own interest," the official said.

Indonesia is trying suspects in the Bali and the South
Sulawesi capital of Makassar terror attacks and the suspected
bomber of the Philippine ambassador's house in Jakarta.