| THIRTEEN Malaysian students caught in a recent round-up of suspected militants in Pakistan were being groomed as future leaders of the Jemaah Islamiah terrorist network. Deputy home minister Chor Chee Heung said the Malaysians — who were detained with six Indonesians — were sent to Karachi religious schools to be trained as potential replacements for JI leaders. Some of the Malaysian students were children of JI suspects currently under detention. The Malay Mail had reported earlier that the fathers of four of the detained students were being held at a detention camp in Taiping. One of the Indonesians, Rusman Gunawan, is a brother of alleged JI operations chief Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, who is now in US custody. Mr Chor told reporters yesterday that, before heading for Pakistan, the Malaysian students had received ’preliminary training’ at the Maahad Tarbiyah Islamiyah Luqmanul Hakiem in Johor, which was modelled after the Indonesian pesantren, or boarding school, founded by militant cleric Abu Bakar Bashir. The school was shut down by the Malaysian authorities last year for propagating Al-Qaeda’s brand of radicalism. Mr Chor told Parliament earlier in the day that 465 people had been identified as JI members in Malaysia, and that the group had indirect links to the Al-Qaeda network, mostly in the form of financial dealings. Police had traced 192 individuals over the past two years, including 60 now being held under the Internal Security Act. Several on the list escaped overseas. While the total stands at close to 500, the authorities believe that only about 100 people have escaped the security dragnet as some of the names on the list are aliases. |