fly an airplane into a skyscraper in Los Angeles.
Shaving off his beard, Hambali, then aged 40, had bounced around incognito in neighboring Cambodia, while staying in a cheap hotel among international backpackers, before allegedly using a Spanish passport to hide in Thailand’s ancient Buddhist town of Ayutthaya, 50 miles (85 kilometers) north of Bangkok, BosNewsLife established.
CIA and Thai agents tracked him down after discovering a key with an Ayutthaya apartment name tag, in the possession of an arrested Malaysian terror suspect. Immediately after capturing Hambali in room 601 of the Boonyarak Apartment block in Ayutthaya, he disappeared under US custody and has not been publicly seen since. Thailand is a close ally of the United States in its war against terrorism, amid fears of more violence on Thai soil, already shaken by Muslim violence, destroying lives and the economy in southern areas.
Thai security officials have expressed concern over possible terror attacks against Christian churches and the tiny Christian minority here, as well as other targets deemed ‘pro-Western’ by Muslim militants, BosNewsLife learned. Foreign missionaries based in Thailand and Western enterpreneurs fear this could further undermine Thailand’s image as a relative beacon of stability in Asia.
TORTURE ALLEGED
The capture of Hambali seemed part of Thailand’s efforts to show the world it is seriously supporting the hunt for terrorists. However human rights watchers claim the cooperation also led to Hambali’s torture via a "rendition" to Jordan, or caged during "brutal interrogation" by Americans in Guantanamo Bay, or on the US-occupied Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, or in Bagram, Afghanistan.
Washington has denied it uses torture and claims Hambali was a senior member of the "foreign terrorist organization" Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), or Islamic Community. Alleged Indonesian terrorist leader Abu Bakar Bashir insisted at the time that JI was created by the CIA, along with Al Qaeda, to trick and persecute Muslims.
Indonesian-born Hambali reportedly trained in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, while the CIA was allegedly arming and financing an Afghan Islamic jihad against a "godless" communist Soviet occupation, and when Osama bin Laden was also active there. US President George W. Bush on Thursday, February 9, however, announced for the first time that Hambali was crucial to a plot to hijack an airplane, and fly it into the tallest building on America’s west coast.
LIBERTY TOWER
Bush initially said the building was the "Liberty Tower" in Los Angeles, but that was later
corrected to refer to the Library Tower. The 73-story building had since been renamed the US Bank Tower. "We now know that in October 2001, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad — the mastermind of the September the 11th attacks — had already set in motion a plan to have terrorist operatives hijack an airplane using shoe bombs to breach the cockpit door, and fly the plane into the tallest building on the west coast," Bush added.
"We believe the intended target was Liberty Tower in Los Angeles, California. Rather than use Arab hijackers as he had on September the 11th, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad sought out young men from Southeast Asia — whom he believed would not arouse as much suspicion. To help carry out this plan, he tapped a terrorist named Hambali, one of the leaders of an al Qaeda affiliated group in Southeast Asia called J. I.," Bush stressed in a speech at the National Guard Building in Washington, D.C.
"Hambali recruited several key operatives who had been training in Afghanistan. Once the operatives were recruited, they met with Osama bin Laden, and then began preparations for the west coast attack," the president claimed. After busting suspects in Southeast Asia during 2002, the "west coast plot had been thwarted," Bush said. The president named a dozen countries helping the US war on terrorism, but did not specify America’s close ally Thailand when he said, "In the summer of 2003, our partners in Southeast Asia conducted another successful manhunt that led to the capture of the terrorist Hambali."
CASH DEMAND
Bush’s announcement about Hambali coincided with the president’s demand to Congress for a 28.5 billion US dollar increase in military funds. Hambali, whose real name is Riduan Isamuddin, has been blamed for several terrorist plots. "Thai authorities captured senior Al Qaeda terrorist Hambali, who was responsible for the deadly bombings in Bali and Jakarta," US Ambassador-Designate to Thailand, Ralph L. "Skip" Boyce, told the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in June 2004.
The Indonesian island of Bali suffered bombings in October 2002 which killed more than 200 people. An August 2003 bomb in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, killed at least 13 in front of the US-owned Marriott Hotel two weeks before Hambali’s arrest. "The U.S. government has already given us 10 million dollars for help in the arrest of Hambali," as a reward, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said after Hambali was seized. "Hambali planned to carry out bombings in Thailand against the US and British embassies, nightclubs in Phuket and Pattaya, and the Israeli check-in counter at Bangkok’s Don Muang airport," London’s Sunday Times reported in October 2003, citing Hambali’s purported "interrogation transcript".
"Hambali and two Al Qaeda assistants also considered attacking an Israeli restaurant with a Star of David above it, in the [Bangkok] backpacker area of Khao San Road," the British report said. The popular restaurant, in a street perpetually jammed with thousands of tourists and Thais, has since removed its large six-pointed advertisement. (Award-winning reporter, photojournalist and author Richard S. Ehrlich has covered Asia for 27 years for a variety of media, including as staff correspondent for United Press International from 1978 to 1984, based in Hong Kong and New Delhi. He also co-authored the non-fiction best seller "HELLO MY BIG BIG HONEY!" — Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews. The book, reviewed by Time magazine and other leading publications, looks beyond the red light of Thailand’s nightlife, and gives a rare insight in the often tragic and difficult relationships between prostitutes and their clients. Ehrlich, who was born in the US and is currently based in Bangkok, received the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism’s Foreign Correspondent’s Award in 1978. He speaks some Mandarin, Hindustani, Urdu, Thai, Spanish and French. Ehrlich can be reached for assignments and/or more information via website: http://www.geocities.com/asia_correspondent/news.html )
