OSAMA BIN LADEN has been linked to the Bali bombing by the testimony of one of his senior lieutenants.
The man has told CIA interrogators that thousands of dollars from an account controlled by Bin Laden was used to buy explosives by the Islamist group suspected of the attack.
A confidential American intelligence document, seen by The Sunday Times, reveals that $74,000 (nearly £48,000) was transferred from an account in the name of Sheikh Abu Abdullah Emirati, one of Bin Laden’s pseudonyms, to pay for three tons of explosives bought from the Indonesian military.
Nearly 200 people died in the attack on the Sari nightclub last weekend, including more than 30 Britons. C4, a powerful plastic explosive used by the military, was also used in the Bali bomb although its origins are not yet known.
The revelation adds weight to the claim that the Bali bombing was part of co-ordinated worldwide attacks on western interests and not the work of a disaffected local group. It raises new questions about why the British and Australian governments, to which the intelligence was made available by the CIA, did not respond more quickly to the threat by Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda terrorist group.
The intelligence document details a confession made by Omar Faruq, described as Bin Laden’s envoy in southeast Asia, who was arrested in Indonesia in June and handed over to the CIA in Afghanistan. Faruq described a series of plots to kill westerners, Indonesians and Israelis, including: o Random shooting of Israelis and Americans at hotels across Indonesia. This was abandoned because it would have only “minimal impact”. o Hijack a civilian aircraft and fly it into an Israeli target. o A plot in May 2002 to blow up American naval vessels during US-Indonesian military naval exercises, for which Faruq was trained in planting underwater explosives. o A chemical attack using cyanide to be sprayed from perfume bottles.
The plans were devised by Faruq and Indonesian co-conspirators after Al-Qaeda sent him to southeast Asia in the 1990s to establish links with groups fighting for a separate Islamic state. He tried to enrol in pilot training for a suicide attack, before joining the Khalden terror training camp in Afghanistan.
In 2000 he escorted Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Al-Qaeda second-in-command, on a trip to Indonesia to forge closer ties with rebel groups trying to drive out Christians from the mainly Muslim Indonesian archipelago.
Faruq, a Kuwaiti, describes two attempts to kill Megawati Sukarnoputri, the Indonesian president and daughter of Sukarno, the nation’s founding father. One bid failed when the group could not get hold of guns. The other ended with the assassin blowing his leg off when the bomb exploded prematurely in a shopping mall in Jakarta, the capital.
Faruq claimed to American interrogators that Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah, the Islamist group suspected of the Bali bombing, received $74,000 from the Bin Laden account. Ba’asyir sent his assistant to buy explosives — illegally sold by the Indonesian army — which were then distributed to Islamist groups there.
In a fresh development, Indonesian police are seeking a local woman suspected of having detonated the bomb. She was seen by witnesses jumping from a mini-van parked in front of the Sari club last Saturday. Police in Bali said investigators had so far questioned 67 people in connection with the nightclub blasts, but there were no formal suspects.
Ba’asyir, 64, was arrested on Friday, although he has not been named as a suspect in the Bali atrocity. He developed breathing problems and was taken to hospital where he remained yesterday under police guard.
He is expected to be charged on four counts, including terrorism in relation to a series of bombings of Christian churches in 2000, treason for plotting the assassination of Indonesia’s president, immigration offences and destruction of property. Faruq’s testimony is expected to be crucial in the prosecution.
Matori Abdul Djalil, Indonesia’s defence minister, said yesterday that it was “illogical” for Ba’asyir to say he did not know about the bombings.
Australia has already warned of a backlash from Ba’asyir’s supporters. “That is something we have got to be very wary of,” said Alexander Downer, the foreign minister.
British and American investigators are still trying to shut down Al-Qaeda’s sources of funds. They are believed to have identified a dozen of its principal backers, most of them wealthy Saudis. A senior US treasury official is due in Europe to enlist help in tracing and blocking the flow of cash.
Bin Laden, whose whereabouts are still unknown, has a network of bank accounts in the Middle East. His noms de guerre include the Sheikh, Abu Abdullah and the Emir. Emirati, the name on the account from which funds were sent to Ba’asyir, is a derivative of Emir.
Indonesian Islamist groups also obtained funds from Al Haramain, a Saudi-based charity supposedly for underprivileged Muslims. According to Faruq, Al Haramain was “the principal source” of his funding in Indonesia. America lists the Somalian and Bosnian branches of the charity as conduits for Al-Qaeda cash. Al Haramain denied yesterday that it was involved in the financing of militant Islamic groups.
An investigation by the influential American-based Council on Foreign Relations accused Saudi Arabia of ignoring the fact that it was the origin of much of Al-Qaeda’s wealth.
“For years, individuals and charities based in Saudi Arabia have been the most important source of funds for Al-Qaeda; and for years Saudi officials have turned a blind eye to this,” the council reported last week.
It also accused Middle Eastern banks of poor financial controls. Al-Qaeda tapped into the system of zakat, whereby all Muslims are expected to donate at least 2.5% of their incomes to humanitarian causes, it found.
The Foreign Office, criticised for not warning against travel to Indonesia before the attack, has warned Britons against travel to many parts of southeast Asia, saying they should exercise extreme caution in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and East Timor.
The warnings came as the CIA reported an increase in Al-Qaeda activity, similar to that prior to the World Trade Center attacks. Al-Qaeda cells were in “execution phase”, acting to coincide with the broadcast of tapes allegedly made by Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, and broadcast earlier this month on Al-Jazeera, the Qatari TV station. These were a call to arms.
