Posted on 02/10/2006 7:04:06 PM PST by Fred Nerks
How US stopped Hambali Natalie O'Brien and Patrick Walters February 11, 2006 IT should have been no surprise that the Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiah and its operations chief Hambali were named by US President George W. Bush as the figures behind a 2002 plot to fly a plane into California's tallest building.
JI and Hambali, mastermind of the Bali bombing, were not only intimately connected with al-Qa'ida's chief strategist Khalid Sheik Mohammed in the plan to destroy the US Bank Tower in Los Angeles, they had been in cahoots for years, planning to blow up US airliners and fly them into skyscrapers.
As far back as 1995, Mohammed and Hambali put together a terror blueprint that has become known as Operation Bojinka. It was a three-pronged plan to assassinate Pope John Paul II during a visit to Manila, blow up 11 US planes and fly a Cessna packed with explosives into the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
But for the second wave of attacks on the US, planned for 2002, they had decided to avoid operatives with Arab backgrounds. Instead, Hambali recruited a Malaysian militant named Zaini Zakaria to head the cell responsible for flying a plane into the LA skyscraper, then known as the Library Tower. Mr Bush released details of the planned attack on Thursday, naming JI and Hambali and saying it illustrated the need to move swiftly against any suspicious terrorist activity.
"It took the combined efforts of several countries to break up this plot," the President said. "By working together, we stopped a catastrophic attack on our homeland."
While it might have come as a revelation to the Americans that a Southeast Asian terror group might be targeting US interests, it was no surprise to Australian and Asian intelligence agencies who have been hunting JI for years.
JI operates mainly in Indonesia and The Philippines and is blamed for a string of attacks including the 2002 Bali bombing, which killed 202 people, among them 88 Australians.
The terror group has also been accused of staging the October 2004 bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta, the Marriott Hotel bombing and three suicide bombings in Bali last October that killed four Australians.
Its former director of operations Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, was considered the link man between JI and al-Qa'ida and he had been crucial to plans by JI to set up terror cells.
Intelligence documents have revealed that JI had divided its operations into four major cells, known as mantiqis, and Mantiqi 4 covered the Indonesian province of Papua and Australia.
In preparation for his plans, Hambali had sent terrorist trainer Azman Hashim to Australia to run a paramilitary weapons training camp for Australians in the Blue Mountains.
Hambali also organised for twins Abdul Rahim Ayub and Abdul Rahman Ayub to further the JI cause in Australia. They lived in Sydney and Perth. Both brothers have since left the country. One of them is now on the Phillipine island of Mindanao training terrorist recruits.
The US Government's 2004 9/11 commission report detailed the close links that developed between Hambali and Mohammed in the late 1990s. "Hambali did not originally orient JI's operations toward attacking the United States, but his involvement with al-Qa'ida appears to have inspired him to pursue American targets.
"Hambali's newfound interest in striking against the US manifested itself in a spate of terrorist plans. Fortunately none came to fruition," the report concluded in an oblique reference to what could have been the LA plot.
The commission said Mohammed, when interrogated by US agents, had taken credit for Hambali's shift of focus, claiming to have urged the JI operations chief to concentrate on attacks on the US economy.
The al-Qa'ida-JI partnership led to a number of proposals that would marry al-Qa'ida's financial and technical strength with JI's access to materials and local operatives, with Hambali in the critical role of co-ordinator.
According to terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna, Hambali played a key role in Operation Bojinka. He said the plot was to involve a sequence of events from the assassination of Pope John Paul II in The Philippines on January 15 to the bombing of 11 airliners on January 21 and 22 followed by the flying of a Cessna packed with explosives into CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
But the plot came undone after a fire in a Manila apartment on January 6, 1995. Police discovered evidence of the plot on a computer in the apartment and the operation was abandoned. But plans to blow up planes and fly them into buildings continued. And in the wake of the September 11 attacks, Hambali and Mohammed began hatching the Library Tower plan.
It has been revealed that they established a cell and four terrorists were being trained to carry out the attack, which included using shoe bombs to break into to an aeroplane cockpit.
The JI operatives trained in Afghanistan and met Osama bin Laden.
The head of the cell also received instructions on the use of shoe bombs from Briton Richard Reid, who in December 2001 tried to blow up an airliner with explosives planted in his shoes.
But the plan was thwarted early in 2002 when a key al-Qa'ida operative was arrested in Southeast Asia. In the subsequent debriefings of this operative, enough information was gleaned to round up the terrorists involved in the plot.
The Bush administration has not revealed the name of this al-Qa'ida operative. But The Weekend Australian has confirmed Mr Bush was almost certainly referring to Zaini Zakaria, a Malaysian recruited by Hambali and sent for pilot training by Mohammed. Zakaria was one of several Malaysians recruited to form a suicide cell for al-Qa'ida, and it is understood he and the others met bin Laden.
Zakaria, who is mentioned in the 9/11 Commission report, was key to the second wave operation against the US planned by Mohammed. The Library Tower attack was planned to follow the September 11 attacks.
Ken Conboy, whose book The Second Front is largely about Hambali, said revelations of the Library Tower plot came from several sources. "They knew about the plot well before Hambali was captured (in Thailand in 2003)," he said.
Conboy said the Library Tower plans were underway before September 11. "The first people got wind of it in late 2001. By spring the next year, the Indonesians were looking into it. It was corroborated when they got Mohammed."
Zakaria is now in detention in Malaysia. Two of the other Malaysian suicide cell recruits, Bashir bin Lap, known as Lillie, and Mohammed Farik bin Amin, known as Zubair, were arrested in Thailand with Hambali. Hambali is in US custody, in an undisclosed location, possibly Jordan.
(Thought Ken, the Black Avenger, had come out of retirement, I miss him very much)
Hamblen, Hambli, Hamblu, hey it's easy to misread headlines...
"Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiah and its operations chief Hambali were named by US President George W. Bush as the figures behind a 2002 plot to fly a plane into California's tallest building."
I'm an Aussie, The Black Avenger means nothing to me, but how the US stopped Hambali does.
I know what you mean. I'm just a bit cranky at the insinuations from the left that the statement was made simply as a scare tactic.
How many 9/11 will it take for the Dems to get the message?
How did they manage to recount the story of Bojinka without mentioning Ramsi Yousef, its mastermind?
Ramsi Yousef, for those just tuning in, was also the mastermind of the first World Trade Center attack in the early nineties, and an Iraqi agent.
I guess it's because the story was written by an Aussie to whom the terror organisation JI (Indonesia)and the name Hambali rings louder bells than Yousef.
However, I'm inclined to agree leaving out the mastermind shows how shallow journalistic research is, regardless of nationality.
Good point.
save
Fine article, generally.I guess it's because the story was written by an Aussie to whom the terror organisation JI (Indonesia)and the name Hambali rings louder bells than Yousef.
However, I'm inclined to agree leaving out the mastermind shows how shallow journalistic research is, regardless of nationality.
Journalism is inherently shallow since, as a genre of nonfiction, it is defined by its deadlines.Journalism is also inherently arrogant when it presumes to be more objective than the general public. Objectivity is a virtue, and it is arrogant to argue from a claim of your own superior virtue.
That's why sophistry has such a bad name - it's simply the assumption of your own superior wisdom. And if two people each argue from the assumption that they are wiser than the other, you don't have a debate but a shouting match, if not a fistfight.
Ping
They are cockpit breaching devices.
Welcome to my life.
Islam pisses me off.
Can't thank you enough for that link:
Why Broadcast Journalism is Unnecessary and Illegitimate
Sept 14, 2001
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/523109/posts
Now I'm going back to read more of the thread.
Bingo.
I believe our entire species has been diminished by the actions of the barbarians living amongst us.
I am watching the opening of the Winter Olympics, remembering the Israeli athletes murdered in Munich...and I am wondering, how many more have died since then as the result of the cult of muhammad?
Thanks a lot for the ping.
Thanks for the article - informative, educational.
>>I know what you mean. I'm just a bit cranky at the insinuations from the left that the statement was made simply as a scare tactic.
Bingo. On the one hand, I see Lefties whining that the threat isn't all that serious, we are overreacting with taps of international calls, etc. Then when we reveal something, that was long enough ago that we aren't affecting current intelligence efforts, that shows that the threats are serious, it gets poo-pooed and used in an attempt to make political points.
aka Riduan Issamuddin
To get really cranky, check out some of the left's stories relating to Nuradin Abdi.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.