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| Southeast Asia |
| Top is infatuated with al-Qaeda - ICG analysis |
| 2006-05-06 |
| Radical Islamic terrorist Noordin Top was "infatuated" with al-Qaeda and has modelled himself on its leaders as he plots more attacks in Asia, a report has said. Noordin is blamed in part for both the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings as well as the 2004 attack on Australia's Jakarta embassy. An analysis by the International Crisis Group said he was now trying to extend his reach beyond Jemaah Islamiah (JI) to recruit supporters from other extremist Islamic groups. By doing so he has put himself beyond the reach of JI's central command and some wary Islamic religious leaders. "He reportedly justifies his actions on the grounds that under emergency conditions - for example if surrounded by the enemy - a small group or even a single individual can take on the enemy without instructions from its imam," the report said. "In this way, he may see himself as leading the 'real' JI, as opposed to the do-nothings who object to the bombings." Malaysian-born Noordin, nicknamed the "moneyman", is one of Asia's most wanted men. He has narrowly escaped a series of police raids, including a fierce gunbattle in which his chief bombmaker and most trusted confidant Azahari Husin was killed. Two other top aides, including his chief of staff Jabir, were shot dead by crack police during a dawn raid on a hideout near the central Java town of Wonosobo on April 29. The ICG report on the networks of support which were helping Noordin evade his hunters and continue bombings said the 38-year-old had begun to compare himself with senior al-Qaeda terrorists, naming his group after the feared terror network. "The extent of his actual communication with al-Qaeda is not clear but he certainly seems to have been infatuated with it," the report said. "As of mid-2004, he had taken on the nom-de-guerre of `Aiman', almost certainly after the al-Qaeda Number Two Aiman Zawaheri". He had also begun to imitate the style of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is the architect of the anti-US insurgency in Iraq and responsible for the grisly beheadings of western hostages. "Noordin's appearance on a videotape found in November 2005, complete with balaclava covering his face, seemed to be an effort to replicate the videos made by Zarqawi," ICG said. But as police arrests decimated his support networks, Noordin had begun to turn with mixed success to other Islamic militant groups in the lawless southern Philippines and parts of conflict-torn Sulawesi and Ambon. He had been rebuffed by Akram, the commander of Indonesia's longtime Darul Islam insurgency, as well as Abdullah Sunata, who heads the violent Kompak group in religiously-divided Sulawesi. But when both were arrested in mid-2005, Noordin had recruited some of their followers. The Wonosobo raid and Jabir's death would be a severe blow for Noordin and police were undoubtedly closing in on the man who had managed to evade an intense four-year manhunt, ICG said. But the networks of supporters he had recruited and trained would still pose a threat. And Noordin's ambition to create at Islamic super-state had begun to grow beyond Indonesia to other parts of Asia, especially in the Malaysian-ruled Sabah in Borneo, Muslim southern Thailand and in the Philippines. "Noordin's ambitions are too big to stay focused on Indonesia but the Indonesian police are likely to get him first," the report said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |