Word: hambali
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...operatives arrested and interrogated in the region over the past two years indicates that the MILF has maintained close links with JI?including offering training facilities for hundreds of its recruits?almost since JI's inception in the mid-1990s. JI's alleged former operations chief Riduan Isamuddin, a.k.a. Hambali, made this clear to his interrogators after his Aug. 11 capture. "Large numbers of Indonesian members of Jemaah Islamiah are hiding in the Philippines and are supporting the MILF," he stated baldly...
...MILF, however, has consistently denied any links with JI. "JI is a germ," is how MILF negotiator Michael Mastura put it to TIME. "Why should we allow ourselves to become infected?" Mastura says statements made by JI detainees like Hambali, which occur under the extreme duress of interrogation, aren't credible. Moreover, the MILF promised a year-and-a-half ago to cut all ties with foreign and local terrorists as part of the peace negotiations. Since then, the Philippine government has skirted the subject of JI's presence in Mindanao. "We give our MILF brethren the benefit...
...themes Hambali returned to repeatedly in his interrogation is the notion that J.I. is collapsing. He complained that the network is in a "very bad" state "because of those who had been captured," an interrogator wrote. "All the group's savings has been lost to raids and arrests," Hambali claimed. J.I. had been virtually "destroyed." Many intelligence officials and analysts disagree, saying J.I. has been wounded but remains extremely dangerous. Hambali was probably "trying to steer his interrogators," argues Zachary Abuza, author of a forthcoming book on al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia, "trying to make them feel complacent...
...Hambali told his jailers that another recipient of his largesse was the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (M.I.L.F.), which is fighting for an independent Muslim state in the southern Philippines. The group denies that it has ties to J.I. or al-Qaeda, but Hambali and Lillie both described a transfer of some $27,000 to the M.I.L.F. this summer. Lillie said an M.I.L.F. contact reported by e-mail that the money would be spent on "cars and motorcycles," which were codes, Lillie indicated, for M-16s and pistols. Regional intelligence officials say J.I. operatives train in M.I.L.F.-protected camps, a point...
...Hambali and his lieutenants were also charged with casing targets, including the U.S and British embassies in Bangkok, various nightclubs in Thailand and shopping complexes frequented by Westerners in the elite Makati district of Manila. Jewish and Israeli sites received close attention. Though anti-Semitism is central to al-Qaeda's creed, the group has not traditionally focused on attacking Jews. That may have changed last November, when suicide bombers struck a Mombasa hotel frequented by Israelis, killing 13 people, and two shoulder-launched missiles were fired at an Israeli plane nearby. The Kenyan attacks may presage more to come...