EAST ASIA
Emerging Asian Threat: Riduan Isamuddin (Hambali) -- The Next Terrorist Mastermind??
By Jeremy Zakis, ERRI Analyst
Usama bin Laden is arguably the most dangerous terrorist mastermind that this world has ever seen, but as intelligence agencies piece together reports of a new network in Asia, his status as the west's top threat might be overtaken. Since December 2001 when Singaporean authorities arrested 13 terrorists belonging to the Jeemah Islamiya (JI) network in East Asia, new information has emerged about the previously little known terrorist network that has been steadily growing for the past decade.
Asian intelligence agencies uncovered JI plots to blow up multiple U.S. targets in Singapore and Malaysia with 22 tons of explosive, conspiracies to attack U.S. shipping in the straits of Malacca and a chilling plot where terrorists planned to hijack a civilian airliner and crash it into Changi airport. Spanning the countries of Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and the southern Philippines, threat experts believe JI had the capability to carry out most of their plans.
However, until recent times intelligence agencies knew little about who was in control and where it was being organized. They were probably surprised to find out the leader of this network was a peasant paying a $US25 a
month to live in a Malaysian share-house.
His name is Riduan Isamuddin, otherwise known as (aka) Hambali to his peers.
(right)Born in 1966 to a relatively poor family with 13 children in the village of Sukamanah, West Java, young Hambali was forced to lived with his aunt, an Islamic teacher for Muslim women, during the early years. When he was old enough
to write, he began religious schooling, with his aunt, at a school founded by his great grand-father.
Growing up during the 1970s and 1980s, Hambali suffered great oppression under the Suharto dictatorship and was forced to follow a set of country-wide laws that virtually suppressed Islamic worship. Having developed a deeply religious persona, Hambali took exception to the government and formed a militant attitude towards the Indonesian
dictatorship.
In 1985 at aged 19, he attempted to get a scholarship to a top Islamic school in Malaysia, but failed. Being the eldest in his family, he felt duty bound to travel there anyway as a migrant to search for work to help look after his aunt and siblings.
During the three years that he worked in Malaysia, Hambali's militant views against the Indonesian dictatorship, an oppressor of Islam, grew. Around 1988 he was persuaded to leave for Afghanistan and the jihad training camps.
Much of what occurred during his three years in Afghanistan remained a secret that Hambali never spoke about, except for post-September 11 boasting about meeting Usama bin Laden. Whatever training he received, it was enough to become a terrorist leader himself.
Returning to Malaysia in the early 1990s and marrying an Chinese Malaysian woman called NoralWizaah Lee, he ran a series of classes where he taught students about jihad and encouraged them to create an uprising in Malaysia. This was the first time jihad had ever been heard of in Malaysia.
At the classes, fellow preacher and suspected terrorist Abubakar Ba'asyir worked closely with Hambali. Together they formed the JI organization in 1990, an assertion rejected by Ba'asyir when questioned by Indonesian police last February.
Immediately JI was successful and expanded throughout the region with its headquarters in Indonesia. The first jihad that JI funded was the Muslim Militia groups battling Christians in the Maluku Islands, where communal violence has killed between 5,000 and 6,000 people during the past four years.
The notoriety it gained funding jihad in the Maluku Islands almost certainly helped its expansion, because within a decade it had formed a network with satellite offices in Malaysia and Singapore. Strong ties were also established with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in the Philippines.
As JI grew Hambali and Ba'asyir formed a doctrine which stated the group would pursue the ideal of creating a unified Islamic state in Southeast Asia called the Daulah Islamiah Raya. The new Islamic State would include
Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Sultanate of Brunei, the South Philippines, Thailand and Cambodia.
Most of these countries now have terrorist and tribal groups all seeking the same objective, which leads analysts to believe that JI's influence is heavily seated in the region.
Hambali first became connected with international terrorism in 1993 when World Trade Centre bombers Wali Kahn and Ramzi Yousef fled to the Philippines. He provided them with an escape route to Pakistan by supplying them with cash.
One year later, in 1994, he ordered the bombing of a Philippine airliner, that resulted in the death of Japanese businessman when it exploded while passengers were boarding. Local intelligence later found out that the bombing was a dry run for his more ambitious plan of blowing up 12 American airliners over the Pacific.
Shortly after this episode he met with an individual known only as Bojinka. Bojinka is the brother-in-law of Usama bin Laden and took over promoting JI for Hambali through the region.
On December 24-27, 2000, JI proved it was a serious threat to regional peace when it coordinated 30 church bombings in Indonesia killing about 35 people.
One year later, Hambali reportedly met with a man suspected of assisting with the U.S.S Cole bombing in Aden Harbor, and hosted Zacarias Moussaoui, who later became the 20th hijacker in the September 11 attacks, and who is currently in a Virginia jail. Indonesian intelligence also suggests that he met with Khalid Al Midhar and Mawaf Al Hazmi, both terrorists who hijacked airliners in the September 11 attacks.
In 2001 Hambali was instrumental in operation Jabril, which was the planned mass terrorist attacks on U.S. targets in Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. This plan was halted by the arrest of 13 terrorists by Singaporean Authorities on December 17.
U.S., Philippine, Malaysian and Singaporean authorities are looking for Hambali, but have no current leads on his whereabouts. This is probably because he alleged to be an expert at hiding his identity. Rarely will he dress in anything other than peasant clothing and rarely does he appear in public. Needless to say, remember the name, Hambali is almost certain to be among the leading enemies of the United States and western world in the future.
