Hambali, South East Asia’s most dangerous terrorist until he was captured in Thailand last year, wanted to attack Australia but failed to establish a local network capable of staging bombings, it was reported here.
| Bolsters my contention that it's more fun to be an Australian than it is to be a jihadi... |
The Australian newspaper said CIA interrogators had put 200 questions to Hambali on behalf of the Australian Federal Police and Canberra’s spy agency, ASIO, about the intentions of the Asian terror network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) in Australia. The responses confirmed the belief of both agencies that the JI cell covering Australia, known as Mantiqi 4, was the least developed and operationally capable of JI’s four regions, the paper said. The answers given to Austalian authorities revealed that Hambali had almost no success in establishing a local Anglo-Saxon network and instead relied on two Indonesian brothers, Abdul Rahim Ayub and Abdul Rochman Ayub.
| Are both of them safe in jug now? I forget... |
The one exception was alleged to be a local man who could not be legally named, but who has been under the sustained scrutiny of authorities. Abdul Rahim Ayub fled Australia in the days after the September 11 2001 attacks in the United States and remains on the run, while his brother was deported from Australia because of immigration irregularities.
| I guess that's better than nothing. But it would be better if they were safe in the calaboose. |
Hambali is now being held at the US military base on the Indian Ocean outpost of Diego Garcia along with two other key al-Qaeda operatives, its chief of operations Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the confessed organiser of the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, The Australian said. |