'JI has 300-man attack force'

'JI has 300-man attack force'

Agencies, Jakarta/Bangkok/Sydney, Australia

The Southeast Asian Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) militant group has at least 300 fighters trained in the Philippines and Afghanistan, a senior Indonesian policeman said on Thursday.

The leader of the group, linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda and suspected of involvement in a string of attacks including last year's Bali bomb blasts, was arrested in Thailand last week.

"According to our count it would be 300, but it could be more than that," National Police Detectives chief Comr. Gen. Erwin Mappaseng told a media conference when asked about the Jamaah Islamiyah's strength.

The 300 had been trained in Afghanistan and the southern Philippines, Erwin said. Moro guerrillas have been battling government forces in the south of the mostly Christian Philippines for decades.

"They're competent in war tactics including the use of bombs and explosives," he said.

He said the squad also has a smaller elite group but denied that a "suicide squad" exists in JI.

"It does not exist. No suicide squads have been mentioned (by police)," the detective chief said.

The Bali bombings were suicide attacks. A suicide bomber is also suspected in the blast at the JW Marriott Hotel on Aug. 5 which took 12 lives but police have not confirmed this.

The JI wants to set up an Islamic state across much of Southeast Asia.

He showed reporters a photograph of a man with a moustache, saying it was the latest picture of the JI leader known as Hambali, who was Southeast Asia's most wanted man until he was captured in a Thai town last week with two accomplices in a Thai- U.S. operation. He is in U.S. custody.

Hambali was involved in 39 bombings in eight Indonesian cities between August 2000 and the Bali blasts in October 2002, Erwin said on Thursday.

Erwin said Indonesia is "very much interested" in questioning Hambali, who was arrested in Thailand last week and is in U.S. custody at an undisclosed location.

In Manila, Philippines' Foreign Undersecretary Franklin Ebdalin said on Thursday Hambali should stand trial in the Philippines for plotting a train bombing that left 22 dead in December 2000.

Manila has sent a formal request for the U.S. government to be allowed access to the Indonesian militant, also known as Riduan Isamuddin.

In another development, The Australian newspaper reported on Thursday Hambali has denied reports he planned to bomb a 21- nation Asia-Pacific summit in Bangkok to be attended by U.S. President George W. Bush.

The paper, quoting an Asian intelligence officer who has questioned Hambali since his capture in Thailand last week, said the militant was plotting instead to bomb foreign embassies and other targets in Bangkok.

Thai officials earlier said Hambali had been planning an attack on the October summit meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation group, APEC.

Separately, The Nation newspaper reported on Thursday a series of lucky breaks led to the capture of Hambali including the discovery of an apartment key in the pocket of a close aide arrested earlier,

The Nation report could not be independently verified. The English-language daily was the first to report Hambali's arrest on Aug. 15, and has been covering the investigation closely.

The Nation said Thai security forces were not even looking for Hambali. But the trail to Hambali was exposed after Thai security forces arrested a Malaysian national suspected of being an al- Qaeda associate or sympathizer, it said, quoting an unidentified security source.

"He was a small potato," the source said.

But interrogation of that suspect, who was not named, led to the arrest of another Malaysian man, known as Lili, believed to be a senior member of al-Qaeda and a close aide of Hambali.

Lili refused to reveal anything until interrogators happened to see in his pocket a door key with a tag bearing the name of an apartment block in the ancient temple city of Ayutthaya, 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Bangkok.

Lili then revealed that Hambali was living in that apartment block, The Nation said. Within four hours of Lili's detention, a force comprising Thai and U.S. agents swooped down on Hambali's one-room apartment and took him away after a violent struggle, the source was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

Hambali has told his interrogators that he was waiting for a new fake passport, the report said.