Steady cash and friends keeps Azahari free

Steady cash and friends keeps Azahari free

Meidyatama Suryodiningrat, Vientiane, The Jakarta Post

While police may be intensifying their hunt for terrorist suspect
Azahari bin Husin, they admit they are still playing an extended
catch-me-if-you-can game with the notorious bombmaker.

With a small legion of followers and a continued cash supply,
the Malaysian national seems to be as effective in evading arrest
as he is at making bombs.

Despite a national manhunt and a one billion rupiah
(US$100,000) bounty on his head, Azahari, who has been implicated
by police in most major terrorist attacks in Indonesia since
2002, continues to elude police.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, National Police Chief Gen. Da'i
Bachtiar was guarded when asked how quickly Azahari could be
caught.

Speaking while accompanying President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
to the two-day ASEAN Summit in Vientiane, Laos, on Sunday, Da'i
conceded that a dedicated network of followers had allowed
Azahari to evade the slowly closing police net.

He revealed that police were at one time confident about
apprehending Azahari after discovering he had rented a house in
Cengkareng. But a low-key stakeout of the house ended without a
result, when Azahari did not return.

It turned out the terror suspects had a precise monitoring
system -- phoning the house regularly every two hours. If after
two calls there was no reply it was assumed those minding the
hideout had been arrested.

What was worrying was the likelihood Azahari had attracted new
recruits and passed on his lethal knowledge, Da'i said. One of
the four men who was recently arrested in connection with the
Bali bombing had already been trained to manufacture a bomb and
could have begun operating independently, he said.

It is still unclear just how of Azahari's comrades in arms are
at large but several key suspects, such as Zulkarnain, Dulmatin
and Jubir, are still on the police's most-wanted list.

"We have not heard of (Zulkarnain and Dulmatin) since the Bali
bombing," Da'i said.

One of the ways to track the terrorists, through their money
trail, had not gotten any easier as they had stopped using wire
transfers to channel money, Da'i said. "Since the Bali bombing,
this is all done in cash now."

While police suspect some donations come from Indonesians,
they also believe a significant portion of the funds arrive from
abroad. One of the financiers recently arrested has admitted that
money for the group came from "outside".

"He did not exactly say from where but from our analysis the
money must have came from overseas," Da'i said.

The scope of the terrorist network was further highlighted by
the fact that TNT, one of the primary components in Azahari's
bombs, was also likely acquired and smuggled from abroad.

Police believed southern Thailand and the southern Philippines
were likely places where this high-explosive was acquired, he
said.

Da'i brushed off suggestions the explosive could have been
acquired through the local Indonesian black market, saying police
had found no evidence of this.

However, he conceded bomb-making components might have been
stolen from local munitions stores in Indonesia.