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.