Leaderless, terror group still potent

The arrest last week of Southeast Asia's most-wanted terrorist was hailed as a major victory in the war on terrorism. But US analysts warn that radical Indonesian cleric Hambali has left behind a horrifying legacy: the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a terror network closely aligned with Al Qaeda.

US and regional intelligence agents say Hambali - who is suspected of masterminding last year's Bali bombings and helping some of the Sept. 11 hijackers - spent nearly a decade traversing this region, inspiring and training hundreds of militants to carry out attacks.

The moon-faced Indonesian cleric is considered Southeast Asia's most senior member of Al Qaeda, and has been linked to some 300 murders. But more significant, investigators say, is the increasingly radical movement he leaves behind, which has recently added suicide bombings to its repertoire.

"The JI was really Hambali's baby," says Zachary Abuza, a professor at Simmons College in Boston and the author of a forthcoming book on the group. "His arrest is significant - this is the guy who put the network together - but he leaves behind a formidable organization with a lot of its members still on the loose."

Hambali's capture was the result of an intense regional manhunt and cooperation among at least four national intelligence agencies, including the CIA. The key break was the arrest of an associate, Mohammed Zubair, in southern Thailand.

Thai officials say Hambali is currently in US custody, though the US refused to say where upon announcing his arrest last Thursday. Regional analysts speculate he's either at the US interrogation facility at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan or at the US base on Diego Garcia.

US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, in an interview on Australia's Channel Nine over the weekend, said it would be "foolish" to believe the threat has evaporated with Hambali's arrest. "We have a top planner; we do not have all the members of Al Qaeda in our possession, or JI in this case."

Thai officials said Hambali - who is also known as Riduan Isamuddin - was looking to add Thailand to his list of terrorist successes. "Hambali was here to seek refuge, as well as to command and coordinate [an] operation, and arrange payment for the perpetrators," Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told reporters on Sunday.

Mr. Thaksin said Hambali was planning to attack the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum scheduled for Bangkok this October. Twenty world leaders, including President Bush, are expected to attend, and Thaksin hinted that Bush may have been the target. "The US was at the center of this," Thaksin said.

When Hambali was finally caught, in a spare $60-a-month apartment in the Thai temple city of Ayutthaya, the man alleged to be at the hub of an interlocking web of terrorists and Islamic militants was with only his Malaysian wife. Most of his close friends and associates were already in detention in Guantánamo Bay, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore after a string of antiterror successes across the globe.

Those friends have been consistently building a picture of Hambali as the region's most important terror coordinator since shortly after Christmas 2000, when bombs exploded nearly simultaneously in 17 Indonesian churches. Operatives in that attack described him as the operation's chief moneyman and recruiter.

Just a few days later, bombs exploded in Manila train stations, killing more than 30 people. The leader of that assault, Fathur Rahman Al Ghozi, was later arrested and convicted, and he told Filipino investigators that Hambali had also coordinated those attacks.

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