Word: gunaratna
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Dates: during 2002-2002
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Mukhlas and Hambali, says Rohan Gunaratna, author of a leading work on al-Qaeda, are similar in style. "They are both very experienced operatives who speak little but demonstrate their thinking through action." They share a ruthlessness in delegating the most dangerous jobs to subordinates, friends or family. Among the 19 killed by the 15 bombs that went off in Jakarta on Dec. 24, 2000, were three of Hambali's own men. Regional intelligence officials believe that Mukhlas was intimately involved in conceiving and planning the Bali attack, although he appears to have delegated operational authority to Samudra...
...After the arrest last week in Malaysia of four radicals allegedly trained as suicide bombers, some analysts fear that a deadlier wave of terror may be unleashed upon the region. "In every conflict there comes a point when it produces the kind of person willing to die," says Rohan Gunaratna, author of the book Inside al-Qaeda. "That time is now ripe in Southeast Asia...
...that there are more than a handful of fanatical militants in the region willing to die for their cause. The vast majority of the region's Muslims practice a moderate, tolerant form of Islam that utterly rejects the idea that slaughtering innocent civilians is a method of holy warfare. Gunaratna concedes that when it comes to the crunch, most militants balk at kamikaze-style attacks. He recounts a telling anecdote about Riduan Isamuddin, a.k.a. Hambali, the suspected leader of the regional terror network Jemaah Islamiah (JI), widely blamed for the Bali blasts and other deadly bombings. Hambali once asked...
...They say that the problems in the south are isolated cases, that the attacks are undertaken by criminals," says Rohan Gunaratna, author of a seminal study of al-Qaeda. "But they are making a fatal mistake. Jemaah Islamiah has infrastructure there, and there is no doubt that Phuket was considered on the list of targets before Bali. The Thais must act now or risk (having their own) Bali...
...return to the draconian methods of the Suharto days." Says Wolfowitz: "Americans need to understand we're dealing with a country that only recently became free after 50 years of dictatorship. Indonesians are leery about giving too much authority to the police." Whatever the causes, says Rohan Gunaratna, an expert on al-Qaeda at St. Andrews University in Scotland, Indonesia is "the only place in the world" where radicals linked to bin Laden "aren't being hunted down...