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| Southeast Asia |
| Top planning to use al-Qaeda cash to fund terror |
| 2006-03-07 |
| A most-wanted Noordin M. Top-led terror group may have collected money from a religious alms and an international Al-Qaeda terrorists network to launch terror bombs in the country, a report said. An information obtained from intelligence officials here Monday said that the Indonesian Police and other security apparatus have been continuously hunting for the Malaysian terrorist. The report said the police have been trying to disclose financial supporters for Noordin`s terror group and to identify couriers who have transported money from the financial supporters and from Al-Qaeda group. "The police and security apparatus have continued hunting for the terror group," the intelligence report said in response to Singapore International radio station which quoted Indonesian Police Headquarters` Cyber Crime Department head Senior Commissioner Petrus Reinhard Golose`s statement. In a recent international seminar on anti-terrorism drive which was held in Jakarta, Petrus said Noordin M Top`s terror group which was nurtured by Malaysian terrorist late Azahari has deployed its operatives in West Java and Central Java. The terror group has been affiliated to disbanded Indonesian Islamic Country (NII) that has long dreamt for the setting up of an Islamic republic in the country, he said. Al-Qaeda`s supporter Khalid Muhammad who initiated the September 11 terror bombs in New York financed a series of bomb blasts in Indonesia including in the first Bali bomb attack in 2002 and the second one in 2005, Petrus said. "A courier named Ismail who was arrested in Sumatra transported the money to Noordin M Top`s terror network to detonate bombs outside the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in 2003. The remaining of the fund was also used to launch bomb attacks outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in 2004 and Bali again in 2005," he was quoted as saying. Petrus also said besides using Al-Qaeda`s money, the terror group also utilized fund from regional Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror network and earned money from robbery and drug trafficking as well as selling cellular phone`s card and collecting religious alms. He said Wawan was a JI member who was almost captured by Indonesian police after he smuggled illicit drugs to China. Meanwhile East Java military command`s spokesman Lt Col Bambang Sulistyono said here Monday all village security apparatus across East Java have been ordered to trace Noordin`s whereabouts. "East Java military commander chief Maj Gen Syamsul Mappareppa has asked all security forces in the province to step up security after the provincial police anti-terror team arrested Ahmad Bashir on March 3," he said. Ahmad who was wanted by the police was apprehended not far from his house in Surabaya for his alleged activities as Noordin M Top-led terror group`s operative, he said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |