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Down Under | ||||
JI trained in Australia during 2000 Games | ||||
2003-09-26 | ||||
EFL: EVIDENCE has emerged that terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah tried to mobilise its Australian cell about the time of the Sydney Olympics by sending a militant from Malaysia to train devotees in the city. National security sources have confirmed the man, known to them as Azman Hashim, spent close to 12 months in Sydney during 2000, conducting self-defence training and survival lessons in the Blue Mountains west of the city. They say he returned to Malaysia some time in early 2001, where he was detained by the Malaysian Special Branch under the country’s rigorous Internal Security Act. He remains in prison.
Good place for him. Australian police say there is nothing to suggest Mr Hashim’s time in Australia posed any threat to the Olympics, and claim it did not succeed in instilling a militant fervour among local JI followers. However, they have confirmed that his presence here stemmed from a concerted effort to transform the Australian JI cell, known as Mantiqi 4, into a group with the training and capabilities of its three sister cells in Southeast Asia. Malaysia, Indonesia and the Phillipines, right? Mr Hashim fought in the southern Philippines in the mid-1990s and trained in a military camp alongside a group of Muslim jihadis (holy warriors) who have since committed acts of terrorism. He was friendly with the man widely believed to be JI’s fugitive Australian leader, Abdul Rahman Ayub. He is also an associate of the Islamic cleric accused of being JI’s spiritual leader, Abu Bakar Bashir. One big happy family.
Among them are a core group of six individuals, who are believed to have at one stage posed a potential threat, but who are no longer thought to be keen to turn to terrorism to achieve their ends. Or they are just keeping a low profile for a while.
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Posted by:Steve |
#1 I think they missed the whole point of the "Olympic Movement." Don't they know its about commercialism and international prestige derived from buying off skating judges. |
Posted by: Super Hose 2003-9-26 6:09:54 PM |