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| Southeast Asia |
| Singapore busts JI thug |
| 2005-04-23 |
| Singapore said on Friday it had arrested a man linked to Osama Bin Laden's al Qaeda network who had planned attacks in the city-state and had studied bomb making in the Philippines. Jahpar bin Osman trained in the southern Philippines, where Islamic rebels are pushing for an independent state, and had been negotiating with a regional al Qaeda ally, Jemaah Islamiah, on targets to be attacked, the Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement. Singapore, a staunch U.S. ally that foiled plots in 2001 and 2002 to bomb Western targets in the city-state, also said it had released another militant after he "responded positively to religious counselling". The government said 35-year-old Jahpar, detained under Singapore's Internal Security Act for two years after his arrest on Thursday, had been a member of Jemaah Islamiah since the mid-1990s. Singapore has said the earlier Jemaah Islamiah plots, including plans to attack an American school, embassies and U.S. and Israeli companies, were designed to provoke war between Malaysia and Singapore. Singapore authorities said they had released on April 15 Abdul Majid, a 42-year-old Singaporean man of Pakistani origin who had joined Jemaah Islamiah in 1989 and taught a militant brand of Islam to recruit new members. The government said Majid would not be allowed to leave Singapore without permission for two years or meet former militants. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |