JI used donations to fund bombings: Report

JI used donations to fund bombings: Report

Associated Press, Kuala Lumpur

Southeast Asia's chief terrorist suspect collected hundreds of
thousands of dollars through a front charity in Malaysia and used
the funds for bombings and to send recruits for military
training, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Riduan Isamuddin, known as Hambali, also received 95,000
ringgit (US$25,000) from suspected al-Qaeda leader Sheikh
Mohamed, or Mokhtar, to run Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), a regional
extremist network suspected in the Bali bombings and a series of
other attacks in recent years, The Star newspaper reported.

U.S. officials have identified Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a
Kuwaiti-Pakistani, as a mastermind of Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in
the United States. It was not immediately clear if the two names
belong to the same man.

Citing intelligence reports and police sources, The Star said
Hambali amassed at least 2 million ringgit (US$526,000) to fund
JI operations.

Some 800,000 ringgit ($200,000) came from donations to
Pertubuhan al-Ehasan, a nongovernment organization Hambali
ordered set up in Malaysia in 1998.

The organization, which solicited donations by promising to
help suffering Muslims, was a JI front, officials cited by the
paper said.

The money was used to buy weapons, send JI recruits to
Afghanistan and the southern Philippines for military training
and support the Christian-Muslim conflict in Ambon, Indonesia,
the paper reported.

It was also used to finance the bombing of a train station in
the Philippines capital, Manila, and a series of church bombings
in Indonesia, the paper said.

The money was also used to buy four tons of ammonium nitrate,
a fertilizer that can be made into explosives and which
investigators say was used in the Oct. 12 Bali bombings, which
killed 192 people.

Hambali "collected money from unsuspecting people, not only in
Malaysia, but all over the world," The Star quoted Malaysia's
national police chief Norian Mai as saying.

Officials were not immediately available to comment on the
report. But the details fit generally with what security
officials have previously told The Associated Press about JI's
operations in Malaysia.

Hambali, an Indonesian who was based in Malaysia for years
until 2001, is believed to be JI's main contact with al-Qaeda. He
is wanted in several Southeast Asian countries in connection to
bomb plots, including a foiled plan to blow up the U.S. Embassy
in Singapore, and for organizing a meeting of al-Qaeda
operatives, including two Sept. 11 hijackers, in Malaysia in
2000.

Since mid-2001, predominantly Muslim Malaysia has arrested
more than 70 religious militant suspects, including dozens of
alleged members of JI.