Almost as fearsome a name as "Hamtaro".
Posted on 08/15/2003 4:35:04 AM PDT by kattracks
(Reuters) - Hambali, al Qaeda's top man in Southeast Asia and suspected mastermind behind a string of deadly bombings, has been captured in Thailand, handed over to the Americans and flown out of the country, officials said on Friday.
Asia's most wanted man, now clean-shaven and his face altered by plastic surgery, was arrested with a woman by Thai and U.S. officials in Ayutthaya, the ancient Thai capital 80 km (50 miles) north of Bangkok, a senior Thai general said.
"A special flight from the United States picked him up at Bangkok airport on Wednesday morning," said the general, who declined to be identified.
Confusion surrounded the whereabouts of the latest senior al Qaeda-linked radical to be hunted down in the war on terror that Washington launched after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.
Hambali, born Riduan Isamuddin, and his wife were flown home to Indonesia, a Thai government minister said. Indonesia's police chief said he was unaware of the transfer and a U.S. official in Bangkok said Washington was unlikely to reveal his location soon.
Others have been held by U.S. authorities at undisclosed locations, but are believed to have been questioned initially at bases in Afghanistan.
President Bush hailed the capture. "He's a known killer. Hambali was one of the world's most lethal terrorists. He is no longer a problem," he said.
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Hambali's arrest followed local leads, but would not say where he had been taken.
"We received tipoffs from local people that there were strange-looking people staying around there so we checked their background and passports and realized that they were the people we were looking for," he told reporters in Sri Lanka.
The Muslim cleric, son of peasant farmers on the main Indonesian island of Java, crossed into Thailand last week from Laos using a fake Spanish passport, a police general said.
"He was not wearing a beard and he had had plastic surgery," he said. "He used a Spanish passport with a long, confusing Spanish name."
INTERROGATION STARTS
Hambali is wanted in Indonesia as the suspected brains behind many attacks across the archipelago, including last October's Bali bombings, which killed 202 people in two nightclubs.
U.S. officials said Hambali, thought to be operations chief of Southeast Asia's militant Jemaah Islamiah network and the only man from the region to sit on al Qaeda's military committee, was being interrogated but would not say where.
"Hambali is in U.S. custody and that's all we can say for now," said a U.S. diplomat in Bangkok.
Governments across Asia and in Australia breathed sighs of relief at the capture of a man tagged one of the world's most dangerous. He had been on the run since at least 2000.
His fugitive status did not halt his activities, and he was videotaped attending January 2000 planning meetings in Malaysia for the September 11 strikes.
However, officials said they feared JI might strike again -- little more than a week after a suicide car bomber killed 12 people at a luxury Jakarta hotel -- in revenge for Hambali's capture.
"We should not let our guard down," Philippine National Security Adviser Roilo Golez told Reuters. "We have to raise the alert level against repercussions or retaliatory attacks."
SECURITY TIGHTENED
Police tightened security around a meeting of Asia-Pacific officials in southern Thailand that is preparing the ground for a regional summit in October that Bush is due to attend.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said no leader would be deterred from attending the summit in Bangkok.
"Any gathering of world leaders carries a security challenge in the era in which we live in, but we're all still going and I can't imagine there'll be any change on that," he said.
Australia said the arrest of Hambali, who is about 40, was a major breakthrough in the U.S.-led war on terror. Indonesia called it "an important mark in the global fight against terror."
Predominantly Buddhist Thailand has 63 million people, six million of them Muslims, mostly living in the southern region bordering Malaysia.
Hambali was first hunted in Thailand last year and is believed to have given the go-ahead for the Bali bombings at a meeting in Bangkok when he shifted JI's focus to soft targets.
He was also sighted in neighboring Cambodia, but had managed to stay one step ahead of the law.
Almost as fearsome a name as "Hamtaro".
Either the details in this article are incomplete, or something quite odd is going on here.
There has been an unfortunate change though.
JI leader Fathur al-Ghozi escaped from jail in the Philippines. It's thought that members of the Philippine Police aided in his escape.
You have that correct. The peasants (that includes AH-REE-AH-NUH) that have made a mockery of elective office ought to be ashamed, but no one is saying that,much less on TV.If he'd have come to California, he could've received professional plastic surgery then disappeared into the crowd.LOL I hope this clean shaven look reminds everybody that Muslim Terrorists that live among us ( you didn't think they all changed their ways after Afghanistan did you?)in nearly every large city, may also appear clean shaven.Don't forget this fact,and tell a friend too.
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.