Word: azahari
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Dates: during 2003-2003
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...arrests were a heartening victory in Asia's war on terror. But they were followed by bitter disappointment. Shortly after Tohir and Ismail were nabbed, says National Police chief detective Erwin Mappaseng, two bigger fish got away through a maze of small alleys in Bandung. Police say Dr. Azahari bin Husin, JI's alleged master bombmaker, and Nurdin Mohamad Top, a fellow Malaysian and suspected bomb expert, had been hiding out in a boarding house in Bandung for six weeks. Apparently, the two Malaysians got wind of the earlier arrests-and disappeared. When police searched the Bandung boarding house, they...
...Police have circulated detailed sketches of Azahari and Nurdin in various guises, and members of Task Force 88, a group of Indonesian police trained in counterterrorism by U.S. special forces, have joined the hunt. "Key players are still out there," says one officer close to the investigation, "and they are determined...
...Regional intelligence officials believe, however, that Azahari is inheriting a terror network that has in some ways been compromised. Patiently constructed by Hambali in the 1990s, the organization has long been characterized by its array of largely autonomous terrorist cells?a structure that enabled the top tier of JI leaders to remain at a safe distance from the foot soldiers. That structure, say intelligence officials, has now effectively collapsed because so many of JI's leaders have been arrested in the wake of the Bali bombing. As a result, senior figures who remain at large are forced increasingly to deal...
...intelligence officials, who have representatives sitting in on his interrogation, say he has already confessed that he was planning attacks on Western embassies in Bangkok before his arrest. Under interrogation, they add, he also made it clear he thinks JI will function just fine without him. For one thing, Azahari is by no means the only leading figure still at large. Recent news reports suggested that Zulkifli Marzuki, JI's alleged financial mastermind and key link to al-Qaeda, was nabbed in Cambodia in June. But intelligence officials tell TIME he remains in hiding. "While Zulkifli is still out there...
...Indeed, with seasoned operatives like Azahari and Zulkifli roaming the region, the initial euphoria that greeted Hambali's capture has begun to subside. "Hambali's arrest is extremely significant," says the Western diplomat in Bangkok. "But does it mean we can relax now and everything is safe? Not on your life...