Major terror figure
in custody, U.S. says
Top director of Jemaah Islamiyeh
allegedly planned Bali bombings
BREAKING NEWS
MSNBC AND NBC NEWS
Aug. 14 — The White House said Thursday that the top operations leader of the Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyeh, which has been closely linked to al-Qaida, was in U.S. custody. The man, described as the most wanted fugitive in Southeast Asia, is accused of planning the bombing of a tourist district in Bali that killed 202 people in October.
FEW DETAILS WERE immediately available, but U.S. officials told NBC News that the man, Riduan bin Isamuddin, was captured in Southeast Asia by agents of the United States and a second nation identified only as “a Southeast Asian partner.”
Isamuddin, who is also known as Hambali or Hambali Nurjaman, was in U.S. custody at an undisclosed location, the officials said.
President Bush announced the arrest in a speech at Miramar Naval Air Station San Diego, calling Isamuddin “a known killer” and “one of the world’s most lethal terrorists.”
U.S. officials described Isamuddin as the most important terrorist figure to have been captured other than Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, who was seized in Pakistan in March.
Isamuddin is believed to be the head of operations and chief Asian director of Jemmah Islamiyeh, an Islamist extremist group based in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian nations.
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Its stated goal is the creation of a single Islamic state encompassing Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the southern Philippines.
SEPT. 11 INVOLVEMENT
Jemmah Islamiyeh is blamed not only for the Bali bombing last year but also for the bombing of a Marriott hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, last week, in which 12 people died. Isamuddin is believed to have planned both operations, U.S. officials said.
Authorities also accused Isamuddin of being involved in the Sept. 11 plot. They have said he ordered one of his deputies to host meetings between two of the hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, and another high-ranking al-Qaida figure at his apartment in Malaysia in January 2000.
A senior administration official told NBC’s Campbell Brown, who is traveling with the president in California, that an al-Qaida member in Pakistan paid Isamuddin a large sum of money earlier this year for a major attack. No information was provided on whether the payment was in connection with the Jakarta bombing or with another as-yet unrealized attack.
