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Samudra got his start in Malaysia...
A suspected mastermind of the Bali terror bombings taught at a religious school in southern Malaysia run by a group allied to al-Qaida in Southeast Asia, a Malaysian official said Tuesday. Imam Samudra, 35, came to Malaysia in the early 1990s from his native Indonesia and linked up with the suspected leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah to recruit members, the official said on condition of anonymity. The leaders were Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, and Riduan Isamuddin, known as Hambali, who has been implicated in operations ranging from logistical support for the Sept. 11 hijackers to bombings in Indonesia and the Philippines. Like Samudra, who is now believed to be in the upper echelons of Jemaah Islamiyah, both men are Indonesians. Wonder whatever happened to Iqbal, the third member of the Bashir-Hambali triumvirate? Or was that one of Samudra's aliases? In the 1990s, Samudra was a student and later teacher at a religious school run by Hambali and Bashir in Malaysia's southern state of Johor. He taught the two most holy subjects: explosives and knife fighting... The school was shut down earlier this year by the Malaysian government and several teachers there were arrested after being implicated in a plot to bomb the U.S., British and Australian embassies in Singapore. Indonesian police last week identified Samudra as the main suspect in the Bali bombing and said that he decided where to place the explosives. The Malaysian official said that Samudra had befriended Ambrozi, another Indonesian, while they attended the school in Johor Bali. Police have arrested Ambrozi in the Bali bombing. The whereabouts of Samudra and Hambali are unknown. "Hey, Samudra?" "What, Hambali?" "See that guy over there?" "You mean Amrozi? Yeah. What about him?" "He looks pretty stupid and easily led. Why'n't you buy him a beer?" Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2002-11-19 |
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