Singapore: Terror Network Training Leaders Fri Nov 21, 9:56 AM ET
SINGAPORE - The al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist network is training new leaders and likely planning more suicide attacks similar to those in Bali and at Jakarta's Marriott Hotel, Singapore's home affairs minister said in remarks released Friday.
The recent arrests of key Jemaah Islamiyah leaders have only temporarily set back the group, and a new generation of leaders is being trained in Pakistan and Indonesia, Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng said.
Jemaah Islamiyah "as an organization, is only disrupted. It is by no means eliminated," Wong told a security conference in Hawaii on Thursday. His speech was released in Singapore on Friday.
The group, a loose network of Islamic militants extending across Southeast Asia, has been blamed for the Marriott blast in August, which killed 12 people, and the Bali nightclub bombings in October 2002 that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.
"Our intelligence assessment is that (Jemaah Islamiyah) elements are on the run," he said. They "are likely to plan more suicide bomb attacks along the lines of Bali and the recent Hotel Marriott bombing in Jakarta."
More than 200 Jemaah Islamiyah members have been arrested in five countries since the Bali blasts and other attacks. The group suffered one of its biggest blows in August with the arrest in Thailand of Hambali, its alleged operations chief.
Wong singled out as a serious threat Azahari bin Husin, a British-educated Malaysian mathematician and master bomb maker who is believed to have played a key role in the Bali blasts.
Mohammed Ali Saleh Nabhan who is charged with 15 counts of murder for the car bombing of a Kenyan hotel in November 2002 stands in the Nairobi High Court on Friday, Nov. 21, 2003. The al-Qaida attack killed 15 people, including three Israel tourists. His trial date has not yet been set. (AP Photo/Sayyid Azim))
Kenya Charges 9th Suspect in Hotel Attack
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG, Associated Press Writer
NAIROBI, Kenya - A court charged a ninth man with murder Friday for the car bombing of a Kenyan coastal resort hotel filled with Israeli tourists, an attack claimed by al-Qaida.
Mohammed Ali Saleh Nabhan, the younger brother of another suspect in the attack, pleaded innocent at a hearing in Nairobi's High Court.
Judge John Osiemo ordered the defendant to appear with the other suspects on Nov. 28, the anniversary of the attack that killed 10 Kenyans and three Israeli tourists. Two suicide bombers also died.
After the hearing, prosecutor John Gacivih said there was "a lot of evidence" against Nabhan, the younger brother of suspected bomb builder Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who remains at large.
One of the defense attorneys, Moabe Mao, has called the case "entirely circumstantial" and said there was no physical evidence linking the defendants to the bombing, suggesting the men were charged because of U.S. pressure.
Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on the Paradise Hotel, north of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean coast, as well as the simultaneous missile attack on an Israeli jetliner as it took off from Mombasa airport. The missiles missed the airliner.