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| Southeast Asia |
| Three Bali bomb suspects were in Thailand |
| 2002-12-26 |
| Thailand confirmed on Wednesday for the first time that three radical Islamic leaders suspected of involvement in the Bali bombings passed through the country early this year. Major General Tritot Ronnaritivichai, head of the Special Branch Police, told Reuters that Mukhlas - an Indonesian national and top member of the militant Jemaah Islamiah (JI) network - passed through Thailand in January. He said Riduan Isamuddin, a 36-year-old Indonesian preacher commonly known as Hambali, and alleged Al-Qaeda operative Mohammad Mansour Jabarah, a 20-year-old Canadian citizen currently in US custody, also visited around the same time. Mukhlas is currently being held by Indonesian authorities, while Hambali remains at large. ``They were in (the southern Thai province of) Satun around January while running away from raids by Malaysia's Special Branch police in Johor,'' Tritot said. US intelligence officials say Mukhlas and Hambali are believed to have attended a meeting in the south of Thailand in January planning attacks on ``soft targets'' around the region. They say Jabarah's wife rented a house in southern Thailand in January where top JI figures gathered. But Tritot stressed Thailand had no evidence of a meeting. ``They were in Thailand briefly while running to a third country after Malaysia,'' Tritot said. ``From Satun, Hambali might have gone to Myanmar, Bangladesh or an island around there.'' "But they didn't meet, nope, can't prove anything, because I say so!" Thailand has consistently denied Western media reports that militant Muslim groups used its soil as a base to plot bomb attacks on the Indonesian resort island of Bali in October where at least 191 people, mostly tourists, were killed. The Thai foreign ministry earlier this month said that Hambali had passed through the country ``sometime back'', but had never acknowledged visits by Jabarah and Mukhlas. That river in Egypt seems to still run through Thailand |
| Posted by:Steve |