Posted on 08/17/2003 11:26:33 AM PDT by knighthawk
Hambali, the Islamic militant whose arrest has been hailed as a breakthrough in the war on terrorism, was betrayed after members of his Jemaah Islamiah network fell out over money, according to a senior official in Thailand's defence ministry.
In a rare dispute within the tightly knit terrorist network, members of a JI cell in Singapore were angry that comrades in Thailand had frittered away a sizeable sum of money they had sent them to fund a suicide bombing team for operations in the kingdom.
When the Singaporeans were later arrested, they opened up to investigators, according to the defence official. Their evidence led to the arrest in Thailand of a Malaysian national, Zubair bin Mohammed, who in turn knew the whereabouts of Hambali - Osama bin Laden's chief ally in south-east Asia.
"The Singaporeans were told by the Thai group that no suicide bombers could be found," said the Thai defence official, who has been closely involved in the counter-terrorism investigations. "They said the money had been spent on mosques and 'personal investments'."
An official in Thai military intelligence told The Telegraph that bin Mohammed's arrest last month, in a joint Thai-CIA operation, was extremely low-key so as not to alert Hambali, who was born Riduan Isamuddin in 1966.
According to one Thai official, Hambali arrived in the country on a fake Spanish passport from Laos. He was arrested in a rented room in Ayutthaya, 50 miles north of Bangkok, where he was posing as a Malaysian labourer.
His Malaysian wife, an ethnic Chinese convert to Islam, and a Malaysian man were arrested in other one-room apartments elsewhere in the city.
"The arrest of Hambali resulted from information Zubair gave under interrogation," the intelligence official said. A computer seized in Ayutthaya revealed connections between the two men, and police also found documents containing information on the embassies of the United States and some of its allies.
Yesterday the Thai prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, confirmed that Hambali planned to use Thailand as a terrorism base. He is believed to have been plotting to attack the October summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum, attended by 21 heads of state, including President George W Bush.
"Investigations reveal some connection to Apec, but we still have to investigate further," Mr Thaksin said.
Hambali is suspected of masterminding every main act of terrorism in south-east Asia over the past few years, including the Bali bombing and last week's attack on a Jakarta hotel. He is now in US custody, probably in Afghanistan or Guantanamo Bay.
A police general claimed that Hambali had undergone plastic surgery to alter his appearance, but several neighbours and traders near Boonyarak Apartments, where he was arrested, recognised him from an old photograph carried in newspapers.
He played his stay in Ayutthaya by the fugitive's textbook, smiling at neighbours but never exchanging a word and taking care to dress casually in shorts and T-shirt, rather than Muslim skullcap and head-to-toe white robe.
Until his arrest, Thailand - with its reputation for lax security and easy visa regulations - had proved a welcome refuge. Hambali disappeared from his Malaysian base in 2001 when his name began circulating as a senior JI figure and bin Laden's chief representative in south-east Asia.
Before his most recent visit, he had been to Thailand at least twice, in January last year to plot the Bali bombing and earlier this year, after arriving from Cambodia, where he stayed in a backpacker hostel in Phnom Penh.
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