Posted on 05/30/2003 7:26:25 AM PDT by knighthawk
THE arrests of three Jemaah Islamiah members near Phnom Penh this week were sparked by the interrogation of a key Bali bomb planner.
Asian intelligence sources said Wan Min Wan Mat, a Malaysian man in custody in Kuala Lumpur who provided Bali bomber Ali Ghufron with funding for the Kuta bombs, had indicated that many of those fleeing arrest in Singapore and Malaysia in 2001 had hidden in Cambodia.
That information led to a surveillance operation on the Uum Al Qura organisation, which runs a large school and mosque about 30km north of Phnom Penh.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen confirmed yesterday that a feared attack on a series of ASEAN meetings next month had prompted the arrests.
Alexander Downer and US Secretary of State Colin Powell and their counterparts from Japan and North Korea are to attend the meetings.
"The target for an attack will be . . . when US, Australia and Japanese officials, the allies, gather here," Mr Hun Sen said.
Co-interior minister You Hockry said yesterday that the operation, led by US intelligence, had resulted in investigations of al-Qai'da's network since before the Bali bombing.
The school complex, opened five years ago, was almost deserted yesterday, except for a few students waiting for transport home.
One, Ashari Ali, 23, said the three teachers arrested on Tuesday night included the "top man" – Egyptian Esam Mohamid Khidr Ali, 40.
Mr Ali said his six years of study had been free and at no time was there mention of jihad or terrorism.
"We were told we would be sent abroad after our studies but we don't know where," he said. He said the other two men arrested, Thai nationals Jihichiming Abdul Azi, 36, and Muhammad Valludin Mading, 41, were "gentle" teachers.
Mading had been at the school for three years, and Abdul Azi was new but popular with students because he was always ready to play sport and have fun.
The school's other 23 foreign teachers, mostly from the Middle East and Pakistan, were packing their belongings ahead of an order for them to leave the country by today.
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