"Sammy"
Al-Qaeda: After Afghanistan an FT series: Plot to blow up four embassies revealed on Afghan video
John Burton and Roel Landingin on how an al-Qaeda affiliate came close to carrying out a devastating act of terrorism
Published: February 19 2002 12:36GMT | Last Updated: February 21 2002 19:27GMT
Looming on a small rise overlooking the eight lanes of Napier Road, the US Embassy in Singapore is a forbidding building of dark gray granite.
Flanked on either side by the British and Australian high commissions, the target was perfect. All three were to have been reduced to rubble last December, in a plot that revealed the extensive crossborder organisation of a key affiliate of al-Qaeda.
Khalim bin Jaffir, a printer, and Hashim bin Abas, an electrical engineer, had originally come up with other ideas. They had preferred to bomb a shuttle bus that carried US military personnel between Sembawang Wharf on Singapore's north coast.
They videotaped the proposed attack site and Khalim delivered it to the al-Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan.
"Al-Qaeda leaders showed interest in the plan, but for reasons not known they did not subsequently pursue it," said an official at Singapore's Internal Security Department (ISD).
The plan that was eventually drawn up was much more ambitious, intended to devastate not only the security of the more prominent diplomatic missions, but to shatter the calm of the grand homes of the merchant class around the Israeli embassy on leafy Dalvey Road.
Bin Jaffir and bin Abbas both belonged to one of three Singapore-based cells of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI), a militant Islamist group with close ties to al-Qaeda.
It was four years earlier that the group had begun staking out potential targets for terrorist attacks.
In 1993 Ibrahim Maidin, the middle aged manager of a Singapore condominium, visited Afghanistan. On his return to Singapore he began recruiting like-minded Muslims to attend private classes on Islam. He also founded JI's first Singapore cell, the authorities say.
A frequent visitor to the meetings was Riduan Isamuddin 'Hambali', JI's regional leader based in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur. In 1994, Maidin began sending recruits for religious and survival training in Malaysia. From there, Hambali selected some for training at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, Singapore officials said.
By 1997, the Fiah Ayab cell - the first of what would become four JI Singapore cells - had been created.
As the world reeled from the September 11 attacks, a second cell, Fiah Musa, was preparing to go on the offensive.
Faiz bin Abu Bakar Bafana, a 39-year-old Singaporean businessman who had become a Malaysian citizen and served with Hambali on the JI's regional operations council in Malaysia, arranged a visit to Singapore.
The visitors were Fathur Rahman al-Ghozi - regarded by the ISD as JI's explosives expert - using the aliases 'Mike' and 'Randy Ali', and Jabarah Mohamed Mansur, a Canadian citizen of Kuwaiti descent, alias 'Sammy'.
Working with two JI cells in Singapore, al-Ghozi and Jabarah filmed the four embassies, as well as offices housing US companies and Singapore's military headquarters, Singapore officials said.
Yazid Sufaat, a US-trained chemist alleged to have hosted at least one al-Qaeda activist associated with the September 11 attacks during a visit to Kuala Lumpur, was ordered by Hambali to procure four tonnes of ammonium nitrate. He allegedly made the order through his company, Green Laboratory Medicine, and arranged for it to be stored at Muar, a quaint port town on Malaysia's west coast, according to Malaysian officials. However, Mr Yazid's lawyer, Saiful Izham Ramli denies the Singaporean allegations. "My client has nothing to do with al-Qaeda or any militant group. He was not involved at any level whatsoever in the September 11 attacks or any militant activities," he said.
The alleged plotters, advised by al-Ghozi that they would need more than four tonnes of ammonium nitrate to cause the desired level of destruction, then ordered seventeen tonnes more. They also began looking for seven trucks in which to rig up the bombs.
It was their attempts to order the ammonium nitrate from a local company which alerted the ISD.
In the wake of September 11, the ISD said it was already investigating the JI - though it knew nothing of the local cells - after receiving a tip-off that Mohammed Aslam bin Yar Ali Khan, a Singaporean of Pakistani descent, had suspected al-Qaeda links. He was captured in Afghanistan in November, leading the ISD to detain 15 people between December 9 and 24, among them Faiz, Maidin, Khalim and Hashim. Up to eight others fled the country.
A copy of the videotape showing the terrorists' targets was found in an al-Qaeda safehouse in Afghanistan and passed on to the Singaporeans in late December. Based on information provided by Singapore, al-Ghozi was arrested in Manila in mid-January, though not before he had bought a ton of Anzomex explosive, 300 detonators, six 400m rolls of detonating cord and 17 M16 assault rifles and hidden them on Mindanao.
Hambali, the presumed ringleader of the regional organisation, has meanwhile disappeared, as have the explosives stored in Muar.
With key figures still at large, the JI's activities are regarded as far from over. As Goh Chok Tong, the Singapore prime minister, recently said: "It is prudent to work on the assumption that a bomb may go off somewhere in Singapore, some day."
Financial Times
FAMILY KEPT IN THE DARK
Mohamed Mansour Jabarah, aka Sammy, whose parents moved back and forth between Kuwait and Canada, grew up in Ontario, near Niagara Falls. Investigators said no one else in his family was involved in his terrorist activities.
Maria Kemp, a neighbor, said Jabarah’s father asked her to attend the family’s mosque after Sept. 11.
“He wanted us to get to know them better and not to have fear of the family because of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and just to learn more about their culture,” she said.