Terrorists in Asia replace captured leaders

Terrorists in Asia replace captured leaders

Steven Gutkin, Associated Press, Jakarta

Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists in Asia have quickly replaced captured
leaders with a new operations chief and top bomb makers who are
plotting deadly attacks on international hotels and other Western
targets, intelligence officials told The Associated Press.

The arrest of Hambali -- Osama bin Laden's alleged point man
in Asia -- and the cracking of a terror ring blamed for bombings
in Bali did temporarily disrupt the loose Jamaah Islamiyah (JI)
network, a senior Indonesian intelligence adviser said.

But the leadership vacuum left by Hambali's Aug. 11 arrest in
Thailand was filled within three weeks, said the adviser, even as
the Islamic militant group carried out a recruiting drive in
Indonesia -- already home to about 2,000 of its 3,000 members.

The Indonesian adviser and other Asian officials speaking on
condition of anonymity outlined the terrorism threat in the
region before next week's Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC)summit in Bangkok, Thailand. Combating terrorists will be a
major topic for leaders of the 21 Pacific Rim nations at the
meeting.

With terrorist threats in mind, security will be tight for the
APEC summit on Monday and Tuesday -- 20,000 troops and policemen,
fighter jet escorts, mice to test food for poison.

In AP interviews, the Asian intelligence officials identified
the three top new JI leaders: Zulkarnaen, an Indonesian believed
to have replaced Hambali as operations chief; Azahari bin Husin,
a Malaysian academic and reputed top bomb maker; and Dulmatin, an
Indonesian allegedly involved in the Bali blasts, which killed
202 people a year ago.

The three are believed to have been key players in the Aug. 5
bombing at Jakarta's JW Marriott hotel that killed 12 people.

Zulkarnaen leads an elite squad of militants called Laskar
Khos, or special force, according to Lt. Gen. Erwin Mapasseng,
Indonesia's chief of detectives. He said the group had been
recruited from some 300 Indonesians who trained in the past in
Afghanistan and the Philippines.

Azahari, 46, known as "Dr. Azahari," fled Malaysia in 2001 and
is believed to be hiding on Indonesia's Sumatra island, a
Malaysian official told AP.

Authorities have singled out Dulmatin as the man who allegedly
detonated the Bali blasts. He is also said to have built some of
the explosives used in a series of Christmas Eve bombings in
Indonesia in 2000.

The three men held a meeting in March on Sebatik -- a small
island off the coast of Borneo -- to map out what they see as a
holy war, according to the Indonesian intelligence adviser, who
said it's unknown whether Hambali also attended. JI's purported
goal is to set up a pan-Islamic state in Southeast Asia.

Forty-eight people have been selected to carry out attacks in
three stages between December and April in Indonesia, said the
adviser, a former government official who cited sources close to
militants in the terror network.

Authorities have detected plans to bomb a tourist hotel in one
or all of the Indonesian cities of Jakarta, Surabaya and Medan in
December and January, he said. Terrorists also have plans to
target a U.S. bank in Indonesia in February or March, the adviser
said, adding authorities have learned of a third stage of attacks
in April but have been unable to identify targets.

Sidney Jones, a JI expert who wrote a report on the
organization for the International Crisis Group, said progress
has been made in capturing and killing militants and stopping
terror plots.

"The problem is the organization is simply larger and more
sophisticated than anyone believed," Jones said.

More than 200 JI members have been arrested in five countries.

Meantime, JI is reorganizing in three main Indonesian regions
-- Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Sumatra -- said the intelligence
adviser.

And Indonesian militants are in the middle of a recruiting
drive -- the third since 1998 -- with radicals posing as food
vendors and other merchants outside mosques to persuade people to
join their jihad, the Indonesian adviser said.

Indonesian intelligence agents are growing beards, donning
robes and attending prayer sessions and Koran readings to try to
infiltrate the networks.

The suspected terrorists, fearing infiltration, are avoiding
cell phone conversations and conducting training outside the
country, mostly in the southern jungles of the Philippines,
Indonesian and Filipino officials told AP.

Cash believed to come from al-Qaeda to finance attacks is hand
carried to Indonesia via Malaysia and arms and explosives are
entering Indonesia through the largely unpatrolled waterways
between Mindanao island in the southern Philippines and
Indonesia's Sulawesi island, two intelligence officials said. A
typical bombing costs about US$10,000, the intelligence adviser
said.

Investigations into JI have exposed links between Islamic
militants in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and
Singapore.

Seven militants recently arrested in Indonesia's North
Sulawesi region admitted plans to train with the Philippines'
Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Mindanao, said Philippine Brig.
Gen. Victor Corpus.

Training detected in a vast, marshy section of Mindanao
prompted the army to launch an offensive last February, Corpus
said.