Three men arrested in Cambodia have been charged with being members of the Islamic extremist group Jemaah Islamiah. The men - an Egyptian and two Thai nationals - were arrested on Tuesday evening at a mosque just north of the capital Phnom Penh, and have been charged under the International Terrorism Act, court officials said. "This is an example of a concerted effort by the Cambodia government to crack down and end terrorism," said Om Yentieng, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Hun Sen. The three men - 40-year-old Esam Mohamid Khidr Ali, 36-year-old Hajichiming Abdul Azi and 41-year-old Muhammadyalludin Mading - were plotting to carry out attacks in Cambodia, according to government officials. A senior police official said the group had received funds from al-Qaeda through Cambodian Islamic schools via a Pakistani middleman.
| That fits the pattern, right down to the Pakistani middleman, taking his little rakeoff as the funds are transferred via hundi. It's probably significant that they nabbed an Egyptian cleric in the Philippines the other day, travelling with MILF's bomb maestro. Cambodia would seem an unlikely candidate for a caliphate, since the only Muslims I'm aware of are a tiny Cham (non-Khmer) minority. Virtually all the rest of the country's Buddhist. |
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