Background Research on Yazid Sufaat: Malaysian Microbiologist and Al Qaeda-Hijacker Connection

self | 6/2/02 | self

[Ranger]

Here are some results of a Google search on microbiologist and retired Malaysian Army Officer, Yazid Sufaat. 

• His Malaysian  apartment was used by the 9-11 terrorist for  meetings monitored by Malaysian government and CIA. 
• He provided forged papers and funding for Moussaoui to get into the country and into flight school.  He was the 20th hijacker..
• He was arrested by the Malaysian government upon returning from Afghanistan.  His wife who goes by the names Sejarahtul Dursina or Sejahratul Dursina was also later arrested. 
• His company Green Laboratory Medicine SDN BHD purchased 4 tons of ammonium nitrate which has not been found.  He is closely linked with Bin Laden and various Asian Islamic terrorists.  Video tape recovered in Afghanistan shows various embassy targets and buses for the explosives.
• Malaysian government has declined to extradite him but can hold him for 2 years without trial.

I am very curious to know if authorities have linked his Green Laboratory Medicine, pathology center to purchases or access to anthrax.  I think we should keep an eye on this possibility as he or his family or companies seem to be a point where many lines seem to cross.

01/10/2002 - Updated 01:15 PM ET

Malaysian suspected of housing Sept. 11 hijackers

http://www.usatoday.com/news/attack/2002/01/10/malaysian.htm

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Authorities are investigating whether a suspected Malaysian militant let two of the Sept. 11 hijackers and accused terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui stay in his apartment during visits in 2000. Yazid Sufaat, an alleged member of an Islamic militant cell suspected of having ties to Afghanistan's Taliban militia, was arrested Dec. 9 as he crossed from Thailand into Malaysia. He was believed to be coming from Central Asia at the time.

 

His wife, Sejahratul Dursina, told The Associated Press on Thursday that police questioned her about whether he knew Sept. 11 hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, as well as about Moussaoui, who faces conspiracy charges in the United States in connection with the suicide attacks.

Al-Mihdhar and Alhazmi visited Malaysia in January 2000, attending a meeting with al-Qaeda associates, Malaysian and U.S. officials said. The meeting was hosted by a Malaysian, they said.

Security officials videotaped the meeting, and al-Mihdhar and Alhazmi later were placed on a U.S. immigration watch list. But it was too late to prevent them from entering the United States. They were among the hijackers aboard the flight that crashed into the Pentagon.

Moussaoui visited Malaysia twice in 2000, in September and October. A U.S. grand jury indictment alleges he set up an Internet account in Malaysia and received letters of employment from a Malaysian company.

Sejahratul said she told police the couple sometimes let friends and acquaintances stay at a furnished condominium they own on Kuala Lumpur's southern outskirts.

On one occasion in 2000, Yazid asked her if it was all right if someone used the apartment, which was vacant at the time. She said she didn't object.

Sejahratul said she couldn't recall the names of the guests or the exact date of their stay. The names of the three alleged al-Qaeda operatives did not sound familiar, she said.

"They mentioned to me these names; they asked if I know whether these guys had stayed in my condo," Sejahratul told the AP.

"I told the police I didn't meet any of them," she said. "My husband didn't know them either, otherwise I am sure he would have mentioned it to me."

Yazid, a 37-year-old microbiologist, left Malaysia in June, telling his family he was attending a pathology course in Karachi, Pakistan.

He was detained at the border just ahead of the arrests of 12 other alleged members of an Islamic militant cell suspected of having ties with similar groups in Indonesia and the Philippines, and possibly the Taliban.

Authorities also are investigating whether the Malaysian group had links to 15 people arrested last month in Singapore. That group is suspected of planning bombing attacks on the U.S. Embassy and American business interests in Singapore, and being connected to al-Qaeda.

Sejahratul said her husband was very concerned about the plight of the Afghan people, and may have gone to Afghanistan from Pakistan.

"He had planned to set up a medical support unit in Afghanistan, near Kandahar," she said. "Anyway, a lot of people cross over to Afghanistan, is it a crime?"

---

Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Malaysia won't extradite suspected terrorist Yazid Sufaat to US
2002-02-04 19:57:24

 

Santi Soekanto for Ummah News   http://www.ummahnews.com/viewarticle.php?sid=2664

04 February 2002

Malaysian Businessman and former military officer Yazid Sufaat, who is now detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA) for activities prejudicial to national security, will not be extradited to the United States, the Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said.

"As far as we are concerned, he has committed a serious offence and we cannot hand him over to others to be extradited," Abdullah, who is also the Home Minister, spoke on Monday in Kuala Lumpur as quoted by Bernama.

The government would deal with Yazid according to the laws of the country, Abdullah said.

A local newspaper reported yesterday that the US was seeking to extradite Yazid to faces charges in the US in connection with last year's Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington.

Yazid was arrested on Dec 9 at the Bukit Kayu Hitam immigration checkpoint while returning by land via Thailand from Pakistan.

Separately, the Feb 4 issue of Newsweek said US intelligence agencies believed Yazid was a member of Jemaah Islamiah, which it described as an Islamic extremist group that befriended Osama bin Laden and helped him develop a support network in Malaysia and throughout Southeast Asia.

The US suspected Osama and his al-Qaeda network to be behind the Sept 11 attacks.

Yazid is being held at the Kamunting detention centre in Perak under the ISA, which allows detention without trial for two years, for involvement in Kumpulan Militan Malaysia (KMM) or the Malaysian militant group.

Abdullah said that detention of individuals found involved in terrorism-related activities would continue.

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Riduan Isamuddin (Hambali)
The "CEO" of Jemaah Islamiah, Hambali is the 36-year-old deputy of Abubakar who officials say is the mastermind behind a series of bombings around the region. A veteran of the Afghan struggle against the Soviets, Hambali was responsible for organising paramilitary training stints for Jemaah Islamiah members in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He also boasted of having met Osama bin Laden personally on two occasions. In 2001, a bombing mission to Jakarta organised by Hambali went awry when the bomb carrier, Malaysian Taufik Abdul Halim, had his legs blown off after the bomb exploded. In the same year, he instructed Yazid Sufaat, an ex Malaysian army captain to look for four tons of ammonium nitrate, a fertiliser that can be used as an ingredient for bombmaking. Fortunately, Yazid Sufaat is now in detention in Kuala Lumpur but the whereabouts of the chemical remains a mystery. Hambali himself has seemingly "disappeared" from public, hiding somewhere perhaps plotting his next terror mission.  http://content.miw.com.sg/LifeStyle/Military/ls_military02_20020419.asp

____________

February 6, 2002

Time to Engage Malaysia Is Now  http://www.townhall.com/columnists/joelmowbray/jm20020206.shtml

Excerpts attached referring to Yazid Sufaat from a more lengthy article.

Though rarely mentioned in the American media until this past week, Malaysia has suddenly appeared on the foreign policy radar as reports have surfaced in the international press that Malaysian businessman and former military officer Yazid Sufaat has ties to Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda terror network, including Zacarias Moussaoui, the only man charged so far in connection with the 11 September attacks. Malaysian authorities arrested Yazid on suspicion of terrorist activity in December. Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was quoted this week in the Malaysian press saying that Yazid "has committed a serious offence." ...

Malaysia has already cracked down on suspected Al Qaeda operatives within its borders, currently detaining 23 suspected Islamic terrorists. One of those detainees is none other than Yazid, whom Malaysian officials captured last December while he was returning home after supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Malaysian authorities discovered that Yazid had ordered four tons of the powerful explosive ammonium nitrate, four times as much as was used in the Oklahoma City bombing. American intelligence sources believe that the ammonium nitrate was intended for use in an attack on U.S. and Israeli embassies in neighboring Singapore, as well as buildings housing U.S.-based companies.

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http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/ji.cfm

To sustain its formidable vision and conduct operations in at least four countries, JI collaborated extensively with other radical Islamic groups. In particular, it is closely affiliated with Kumpulan Mujahideen Malaysia (KMM), sharing its founders and top leaders, namely, Abubakar Baasyir and Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali. KMM, for its part, has been linked to Indonesia's militant group Laskar Jihad and to the Philippines' Abu Sayyaf. Asian and U.S. officials now have clear evidence that both Jemaah Islamiah and KMM are also linked to Osama bin Laden's global terrorist network through these individuals and their subordinates. For instance, Yazid Sufaat, under Hambali's orders, is believed to have met and provided logistical and financial help to at least three individuals implicated in the Sept. 11 attacks. FBI chief Robert Mueller recently singled out JI as al Qaeda's foremost Southeast Asian collaborator. Singaporean sources report that scores of JI members received military training in Afghanistan, and that JI received over 1.35 billion rupiah ($140,000) over three years from al Qaeda. ³ 

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Former Sac State Students Suspected of Terrorism

Two Arrested By Malaysian Police
http://fox40.trb.com/news/ktxl-041902terror.story?coll=ktxl-news-1

April 19, 2002

KUALA LAMPUR, MALAYSIA -- Two former California State University, Sacramento, students have been arrested by Malaysian police on allegations they aided members of the al-Qaida terrorist network that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.

Sejarahtul Dursina was arrested because she was a partner in the computer firm that gave terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui a job to facilitate his entry into the United States, the national police chief said in Malaysian newspapers Friday.

Moussaoui is awaiting trial in the United States on charges of conspiracy in the Sept. 11 attacks. The French citizen of Moroccan origin is alleged to be the so-called missing hijacker who failed to make the jetliner that crashed into a Pennsylvania field after passengers charged the four terrorists who had seized their plane.

Sejarahtul's husband, Yazid Sufaat, a former Malaysian army officer, was taken into custody earlier this year for allegedly allowing two other Sept. 11 hijackers, Saudi nationals Khalid al-Midhar and Nawa al-Hazmi, to meet at an apartment the couple owned near Kuala Lumpur in 2000.

Sufaat also is alleged to have signed a letter on the stationery of the computer company naming Moussaoui the firm's sales representative so he would have an excuse to do business in the United States.

Yazid was among 24 people arrested by Malaysian police in December and January for their alleged involvement in a plot to blow up the U.S. Embassy and other Western targets in Singapore.

Yazid was arrested Dec. 9 after returning from serving in a Taliban medical brigade in Afghanistan, police said previously.

Both Sejarahtul, 37, and Yazid, 38, attended the Sacramento school in the mid-1980s, police said.

Yazid graduated in 1987 with a bachelor's degree in biological sciences, said Sacramento State spokeswoman Ann Reed. His studies in biotechnology, now called clinical laboratory technology, would have included inorganic chemistry, human blood, human parasites, and pathogenic bacteria, she said.

Yazid transferred to Sacramento State in the fall of 1983 from Humboldt State University in Arcata, Calif. Reed said there is no indication he lived on the Sacramento State campus, and little else is known about him. He attended the winter and spring 1983 quarters at Humboldt State after apparently arriving from Malaysia.

Sejarahtul, also known as Chomel Sufaat, 37, did not immediately show up in campus records, Reed said. However, Malaysian police said she studied civil engineering at Sacramento State in 1984-85.

The pair are the second and third former Sacramento State students authorities said are linked to al-Qaida.

Raed Hijazi was convicted by a Jordanian military court and sentenced to death in February for plotting terrorist attacks against American and Israeli tourists in Jordan during millennium celebrations. However, the judge cleared Hijazi of belonging to al-Qaida, saying there was no evidence the terrorist organization had a formal structure or membership in Jordan.

Jordanian officials say Hijazi confessed to planning to use deadly gas against American and Israeli tourists and to receiving bomb-making training in Afghan guerrilla camps run by al-Qaida.

However, Hijazi pleaded innocent, telling the court his confession was coerced and that he had no links to al-Qaida.

Prosecutors say the targeted sites included Mount Nebo, where tradition says Moses saw the Promised Land, and a Christian settlement along the Jordan River said to be where St. John the Baptist baptized Jesus Christ.

"Their paths did not cross on campus, in the sense that they were not here at the same time...they were not in the same program," said Reed.

Hijazi was born in San Jose, attended Sacramento City College, and took classes at Sacramento State in the spring of 1988, and the January and fall terms in 1989. He studied business marketing, but did not graduate.

Sejarahtul was among 14 Malaysians whose arrests were announced Thursday by Police Inspector General Norian Mai.

He told Malaysian media at a news conference Thursday that the 14 arrests marked the destruction of one cell of an Islamic militant group linked to al-Qaida, but that 100 members remained at large, including three university lecturers who have gone underground.

Norian said that most of the 14 arrested had received guerrilla training in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Philippines.

The sweep brings the number of suspected extremists picked up by Malaysian authorities to 62 since last May, when the government said that an organization called the Malaysian Mujahideen Group was planning a violent revolt financed by bank robberies.

The group is alleged to be part of Jemaah Islamiya, a network of Southeast Asian militants with links to al-Qaida that hopes to install a hardcore Islamic state across Malaysia, Indonesia and the predominantly Muslim southern Philippines.

The detainees are being held under the Internal Security Act, which allows for indefinite detention without charge or trial.

Copyright © 2002, KTXL

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Exerpt from Time Magazine article: http://www.time.com/time/asia/news/magazine/0,9754,197713,00.html

... That would be worrying anywhere, but it has a particular chill in Malaysia, where four tons of ammonium nitrate has gone missing. The fertilizer, which can be used to make truck bombs, was ordered by Yazid Sufaat, a former Malaysian army captain now under detention in Kuala Lumpur for alleged links to the al-Qaeda. (On Abubakar's orders, Malaysian police say, the 37-year-old allowed two of the hijackers on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11 to stay at his apartment in Kuala Lumpur in 2000.) Yazid, who was arrested in December on his return from fighting against the U.S. coalition in Afghanistan, had ordered the ammonium nitrate in late 2000 through a company he owned called Green Laboratory Medicine. Sources close to the investigation say someone accepted delivery of the fertilizer, though it's not clear exactly when. What happened after that remains a mystery. Malaysian police concede the ammonium nitrate disappeared but are also adamant it left the country. The haul totals four times the amount of ammonium nitrate used to destroy the federal office building in Oklahoma City, one foreign analyst points out. With such a huge stash of bomb-making material unaccounted for and hundreds of KMM members still at large, Yazid will be facing some pointed questions from his Malaysian interrogators.

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Exerpts from Newsweek article, 2/4/02.  http://pgoh.free.fr/not_launchpad.html

For months before and after the September 11 attacks, evidence of Sufaat’s involvement with Al Qaeda kept popping up in documents. Last August, when FBI agents raided the Minneapolis apartment of Zacarias Moussaoui, they discovered papers from a Malaysian company called Infocus Tech. Among them were letters of introduction identifying Moussaoui as the outfit’s “marketing consultant” for the United States, Britain and Europe. They were signed “Yazid Sufaat, Managing Director.” Agents soon determined that Moussaoui was a Qaeda operative, and he was later charged as the “missing” 20th hijacker in the September 11 attacks. But Sufaat remained a mystery at that point.
While the Feds trailed Moussaoui in Minnesota, agents were also scouring New York and Los Angeles for two other Qaeda operatives. Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi had been red-flagged by the CIA for attending a January 2000 meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with top associates of Osama bin Laden. Despite the warning, Almihdhar and Alhazmi managed to slip into the United States. When American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, the two Saudis were at the controls. And soon agents discovered that the Kuala Lumpur meeting had been held in Sufaat’s condominium.
Who is Yazid Sufaat? U.S. intelligence now believes the former Malaysian Army captain was a member of Jemaah Islamiah, an Islamic extremist group that befriended bin Laden and helped him develop a support network in Malaysia and throughout Southeast Asia. A secret FBI report obtained by NEWSWEEK says that Malaysia, previously underestimated as a bin Laden stronghold, was a “primary operational launchpad for the Sept. 11 attacks.”
Sufaat’s suspected involvement in the attacks also helped investigators unravel Al Qaeda’s mazelike architecture. Bin Laden reached out to sympathetic and often obscure extremist groups around the Islamic world, where his operatives could fade into the Muslim community—extending Al Qaeda’s global influence and frustrating efforts to foil their plots. Over the last few weeks, Malaysian authorities have arrested 48 suspected Islamic extremists, including Sufaat himself. There have been similar roundups in Singapore and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. U.S. Special Forces are already on the ground as advisers and trainers in the Philippines, where Muslim radicals are believed to have ties to bin Laden. Washington also wants to resume training the Indonesian military, but such aid has been prohibited by Congress because of human-rights issues.
Investigators believe there may be dozens of bin Laden sympathizers like Sufaat sprinkled across Southeast Asia. Details about his life are still sketchy. Now 37, he studied in the United States, earning a degree in biochemistry. Returning home to Malaysia, he started seemingly legitimate software and trading companies. At the same time, he was leading a double life as a Muslim extremist, working as a midlevel warrior for Jemaah Islamiah, according to Malaysian investigators. But the January 2000 Kuala Lumpur meeting was the first time authorities tagged him as a potential Qaeda supporter. Sources have told NEWSWEEK that Sufaat was ordered to hold the meeting by an Indonesian cleric with ties to Al Qaeda. Immediately afterward, Almihdhar and Alhazmi, the two eventual hijackers, flew to the United States and enrolled in flight school.
Later that year Sufaat received another guest: Moussaoui, who was also on his way to the United States for flight training. During the visit, Sufaat fixed up Moussaoui with the employment letters later discovered in his apartment. According to FBI sources, Sufaat also agreed to pay Moussaoui $2,500 a month during his stay in the United States, along with a lump sum of $35,000 to get him started.
“Kuala Lumpur is the perfect place for Arabs to lie low,” says an intelligence source in the region. The city attracts many Arab tourists, and Malaysian law allows Muslims to enter and exit the country without visas. And unlike Somalia, Afghanistan and other backwaters, Malaysia is a modern country, with working phones and Internet access, a stable banking system—and world-class shopping.
Last December, Malaysian investigators discovered that Sufaat had ordered four tons of ammonium nitrate, a powerful explosive used in truck bombs. He was arrested as he returned home from a mission to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Authorities believe Sufaat and his fellow Jemaah Islamiah radicals planned to blow up the U.S. and Israeli embassies in Singapore, and authorities there have detained dozens of the group’s members. That seems to leave Al Qaeda with fewer friends in the world—and perhaps fewer places to hide.

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Two CSUS grads implicated in al-Qaida plot in Malaysia

 

By Sam Stanton -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Saturday, April 20, 2002

http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/projects/attacks/story/2276641p-2690988c.html

Two Malaysian citizens who are California State University, Sacramento, graduates have been implicated in an al-Qaida plot in Malaysia that may be tied to two of the Sept. 11 hijackers.

Officials in Kuala Lumpur this week detained Sejahratul Dursina, who graduated from CSUS in 1988 with a degree in civil engineering, in connection with the alleged plot, according to Malaysian press reports.

Dursina, who was picked up in a sweep of more than a dozen terrorist suspects in Malaysia, was arrested Wednesday night at her home in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Police Inspector General Tan Sri Norian Mai told reporters there.

Her arrest reportedly came as a result of possible ties she may have to Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called "20th hijacker" who faces trial in Washington, D.C., and New York on charges that he planned to take part in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Dursina is believed to be part owner of a computer firm that gave Moussaoui a position as a sales representative so he could do business in the United States, according to the Associated Press.

The federal indictment against Moussaoui alleges that in October 2000, he was named a marketing consultant for Infocus Tech, a Malaysian computer firm, and was to be paid $2,500 a month for working in the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe, court documents show.

Moussaoui was detained last August in Eagan, Minn., after asking a flight school there for training on how to fly a commercial jet but expressing no interest in wanting to learn how to take off or land, officials say.

Federal authorities believe he planned to take part in the Sept. 11 attacks but could not because of his detention.

Dursina's husband, Yazid Sufaat, was arrested in an anti-terror sweep last year after authorities learned he had met with two of the hijackers.

Sufaat graduated from CSUS in 1987 with a degree in biological sciences, spokeswoman Ann Reed said. He came to Sacramento from Humboldt State University after graduating from high school in Malaysia.

Sufaat allegedly met with two of the Saudi-born hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, who were among the five men who commandeered American Airlines Flight 77 and crashed it into the Pentagon.

The Daily Express newspaper in Kuala Lumpur reported Friday that Sufaat also had hosted and financed activities of Moussaoui.

He has been held under Malaysia's Internal Security Act, which authorities have used to detain at least 62 citizens suspected of terror ties, according to the Malaysian newspaper The Star.

His wife was picked up under the same act, and police told Malaysian reporters that they also seized computer laptops and notebooks on military and survival training.

She was among 14 people arrested over a two-day sweep this week of suspected Kumpulan Militant Malaysia members.

The latest detentions mark yet another Sacramento tie to suspected international terror operations. Another former CSUS student, Raed Hijazi, is awaiting retrial in Jordan on charges he planned to blow up a luxury hotel in Amman, Jordan, on New Year's Day 2000.

Hijazi, who was born in California, took business classes at CSUS in 1988-89. According to news accounts, he later told Jordanian authorities that he came to his radical beliefs while meeting with a Fijian Muslim leader in this area.

Sacramento Muslim leaders have said they know nothing about Hijazi. Area law enforcement officials say they also know nothing about the couple detained in Malaysia.

Another former Sacramentan, Ali A. Mohamed, has been identified as a key figure in the Osama bin Laden terrorist network and pleaded guilty in October to five federal charges stemming from the 1998 bombing attacks against two U.S. embassies in Africa.

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Information on Green Laboratory Medicine

Al-Qaeda: After Afghanistan an FT series http://specials.ft.com/attackonterrorism/FT30PCRPYXC.html

 

Plot to blow up four embassies revealed on Afghan video
John Burton and Roel Landingin on how an al-Qaeda affiliate came close to carrying out a devastating act of terrorism
Published: February 19 2002 12:36GMT | Last Updated: February 21 2002 19:27GMT
 

Looming on a small rise overlooking the eight lanes of Napier Road, the US Embassy in Singapore is a forbidding building of dark gray granite.

Flanked on either side by the British and Australian high commissions, the target was perfect. All three were to have been reduced to rubble last December, in a plot that revealed the extensive crossborder organisation of a key affiliate of al-Qaeda.

Khalim bin Jaffir, a printer, and Hashim bin Abas, an electrical engineer, had originally come up with other ideas. They had preferred to bomb a shuttle bus that carried US military personnel between Sembawang Wharf on Singapore's north coast.

They videotaped the proposed attack site and Khalim delivered it to the al-Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan.

"Al-Qaeda leaders showed interest in the plan, but for reasons not known they did not subsequently pursue it," said an official at Singapore's Internal Security Department (ISD).

The plan that was eventually drawn up was much more ambitious, intended to devastate not only the security of the more prominent diplomatic missions, but to shatter the calm of the grand homes of the merchant class around the Israeli embassy on leafy Dalvey Road.

Bin Jaffir and bin Abbas both belonged to one of three Singapore-based cells of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI), a militant Islamist group with close ties to al-Qaeda.

It was four years earlier that the group had begun staking out potential targets for terrorist attacks.

In 1993 Ibrahim Maidin, the middle aged manager of a Singapore condominium, visited Afghanistan. On his return to Singapore he began recruiting like-minded Muslims to attend private classes on Islam. He also founded JI's first Singapore cell, the authorities say.

A frequent visitor to the meetings was Riduan Isamuddin 'Hambali', JI's regional leader based in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur. In 1994, Maidin began sending recruits for religious and survival training in Malaysia. From there, Hambali selected some for training at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, Singapore officials said.

By 1997, the Fiah Ayab cell - the first of what would become four JI Singapore cells - had been created.

As the world reeled from the September 11 attacks, a second cell, Fiah Musa, was preparing to go on the offensive.

Faiz bin Abu Bakar Bafana, a 39-year-old Singaporean businessman who had become a Malaysian citizen and served with Hambali on the JI's regional operations council in Malaysia, arranged a visit to Singapore.

The visitors were Fathur Rahman al-Ghozi - regarded by the ISD as JI's explosives expert - using the aliases 'Mike' and 'Randy Ali', and Jabarah Mohamed Mansur, a Canadian citizen of Kuwaiti descent, alias 'Sammy'.

Working with two JI cells in Singapore, al-Ghozi and Jabarah filmed the four embassies, as well as offices housing US companies and Singapore's military headquarters, Singapore officials said.

Yazid Sufaat, a US-trained chemist alleged to have hosted at least one al-Qaeda activist associated with the September 11 attacks during a visit to Kuala Lumpur, was ordered by Hambali to procure four tonnes of ammonium nitrate. He allegedly made the order through his company, Green Laboratory Medicine, and arranged for it to be stored at Muar, a quaint port town on Malaysia's west coast, according to Malaysian officials. However, Mr Yazid's lawyer, Saiful Izham Ramli denies the Singaporean allegations. "My client has nothing to do with al-Qaeda or any militant group. He was not involved at any level whatsoever in the September 11 attacks or any militant activities," he said.

The alleged plotters, advised by al-Ghozi that they would need more than four tonnes of ammonium nitrate to cause the desired level of destruction, then ordered seventeen tonnes more. They also began looking for seven trucks in which to rig up the bombs.

It was their attempts to order the ammonium nitrate from a local company which alerted the ISD.

In the wake of September 11, the ISD said it was already investigating the JI - though it knew nothing of the local cells - after receiving a tip-off that Mohammed Aslam bin Yar Ali Khan, a Singaporean of Pakistani descent, had suspected al-Qaeda links. He was captured in Afghanistan in November, leading the ISD to detain 15 people between December 9 and 24, among them Faiz, Maidin, Khalim and Hashim. Up to eight others fled the country.

A copy of the videotape showing the terrorists' targets was found in an al-Qaeda safehouse in Afghanistan and passed on to the Singaporeans in late December. Based on information provided by Singapore, al-Ghozi was arrested in Manila in mid-January, though not before he had bought a ton of Anzomex explosive, 300 detonators, six 400m rolls of detonating cord and 17 M16 assault rifles and hidden them on Mindanao.

Hambali, the presumed ringleader of the regional organisation, has meanwhile disappeared, as have the explosives stored in Muar.

With key figures still at large, the JI's activities are regarded as far from over. As Goh Chok Tong, the Singapore prime minister, recently said: "It is prudent to work on the assumption that a bomb may go off somewhere in Singapore, some day."

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The Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda of Southeast Asia
By Marc Erikson

... Other US officials said last week that they had evidence that a US (California State University, Sacramento)-educated biochemist and retired Malaysian army captain, Yazid Sufaat, 37, provided US$35,000 in Kuala Lumpur in the fall of 2000 to Zacarias Moussaoui, a French national of Moroccan descent, who has been charged in Alexandria, Virginia, with conspiring with the September 11 hijackers. Sufaat is also said to have met in January 2000 with two of the hijackers, Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhamzi, who piloted the plane that struck the Pentagon. He is among two dozen alleged Muslim extremists detained in Malaysia since December. ...Authorities in Singapore have ascertained that soon after the start of the US bombing campaign in Afghanistan, Hambali guided execution of a JI/al-Qaeda plan to drive trucks loaded with fertilizer (ammonium nitrate) bombs into the US, Australian, British and Israeli embassies in Singapore. Four tons of ammonium nitrate had been purchased by trusted Hambali lieutenant Yazid Sufaat (see above) back in October 2000 through his Kuala Lumpur clinical pathology company, Green Laboratory Medicine. The explosives materials, originally delivered to the Malaysian town of Muar on the Malacca Strait, were shipped from there to the Indonesian island of Batam just off Singapore. Surveillance of the embassies had been completed and the largest terror attack since September 11 was about to take place when the JI cell members charged with carrying it out were arrested in early December. ...

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Indonesian Cleric Is Suspected of Being a Terrorist

4 Feb 2002

Indonesian Cleric Is Suspected of Being a Terrorist

              By RAYMOND BONNER

http://www.alliancesouthasia.org/index.cfm?sectionID=21&objectID=119

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Feb. 2 — The biography of Riduan Isamuddin,
36, is not unlike that of hundreds of other men his age in this region. He
attended an Islamic boarding school in his home country of Indonesia, left
when the government cracked down on his brand of Islam, went off to fight
the Russians in Afghanistan, then became an itinerant preacher here,
espousing a Muslim state from here to the Philippines. 

But now as the investigation into the activities of Al Qaeda advances, a
darker portrait is emerging of the round-faced, bearded and bespectacled Mr.
Isamuddin, widely known as Hambali. 

"The picture we are getting, which is becoming clearer and clearer, is that
Hambali was the point man for Al Qaeda in this region," a senior Malaysian
official said this evening. 

An American official agreed: "All signs point to his being a major figure." 

One of Mr. Isamuddin's recruits and lieutenants was Yazid Sufaat, an
American-educated biochemist who has been in jail here since December on
terrorism charges. 

Among other things, officials said, Mr. Isamuddin arranged for two of the
Sept. 11 hijackers to visit here and stay in Mr. Sufaat's apartment. He also
had Mr. Sufaat play host to Zacarias Moussaoui, who has been charged in
the United States in connection with the attacks. Moreover, Mr. Isamuddin
had Mr. Sufaat use his company to purchase four tons of explosives for a
planned attack after Sept. 11 on the United States Embassy in Singapore,
officials said. 

The senior Malaysian official described Mr. Isamuddin as the travel agent for
Al Qaeda in Southeast Asia and Mr. Sufaat as the equivalent of the person
who goes to the airport with a card carrying the name of the passenger he is
to meet. 

This week, the F.B.I. said Malaysia was a staging area for the Sept. 11
attacks and an Al Qaeda base. 

Malaysian officials have strongly rejected that. The senior official said that it
was unfair to describe Malaysia as anything more than a "transit point" for Al
Qaeda operatives. 

An easy transit point, it might be said. Although the government of Prime
Minister Mahathir Mohamad does not brook much internal dissent, it has had
a liberal policy toward residents of other Muslim countries: they are not
required to have visas to enter the country. 

In an interview here, the Malaysian official provided details from an
interrogation of Mr. Sufaat, who was arrested here in a roundup of men with
suspected links to Jemaah Islamiah, or the Islamic Group. 

Acting on orders from Mr. Isamuddin, the Malaysian official said, Mr. Sufaat
used his clinical pathology company, Green Laboratory Medicine, to
purchase four tons of explosives that were to be detonated in front of the
American, Australian, British and Israeli Embassies in Singapore. The plot
was apparently thwarted by Singapore officials when they arrested 13 men in
December. 

Mr. Sufaat went to Afghanistan last June and was there on Sept. 11. He was
arrested trying to return to Malaysia. 

The Bush administration would like to extradite him, but has not made a
formal request. The Malaysians have shared the information from his
interrogation with the United States, the official said, but the F.B.I. has not
interviewed him. 

Mr. Sufaat lived in Sacramento in the 1980's, according to public records,
and attended California State University there, the official said. 

His wife also attended college in the United States, the official said, but he
said he did not know the name of the school. 

After Mr. Sufaat returned to Malaysia in 1987, his in-laws urged him to
practice his religion more diligently, saying he had neglected it while abroad,
he told investigators, and it was then that he came into Mr. Isamuddin's
circle. 

Two of the suspected Sept. 11 hijackers, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq
Alhazmi, stayed in Mr. Sufaat's apartment for three days in January 2000;
Mr. Isamuddin had a key to the apartment, the Malaysian official said. 

While here, Mr. Midhar and Mr. Alhazmi were followed by Malaysian
intelligence agents and were videotaped shopping, making a call from a
public phone and surfing Arabic-language Web sites at an Internet cafe, the
official said. 

The official said the tapes were given to American intelligence officials, but
the men were not arrested because there was no evidence they had
committed any crime. 

Again acting on orders from Mr. Isamuddin, Mr. Sufaat played host to Mr.
Moussaoui when he came in 2000. Mr. Moussaoui inquired about flight
schools here and discovered that there was one, but he decided against
attending because it was more than two hours from the capital and did not
provide training on jumbo jets, Mr. Sufaat told investigators. 

Mr. Sufaat provided Mr. Moussaoui with the letter that he used to enroll in a
flight school in the United States. Mr. Moussaoui has pleaded not guilty to
charges that he was part of the Sept. 11 conspiracy. 

Mr. Sufaat's wife has denied that her husband had any connections with Al
Qaeda or any terrorist organization. She has called the charges "baseless,
wrong and outrageous." 

Malaysian and Singaporean officials say that Mr. Isamuddin ran the
operations for the Islamic Group. The group's spiritual leader, they say, is
another Indonesian cleric, Abu Bakar Baasyir. The organization had cells in
Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia, according to the Singaporean
government. 

Mr. Isamuddin arranged for men to go to Afghanistan for training, according
to a statement from the Singaporean government. He gave them false
documents saying they were going to school in Pakistan, which gave the
recruits the cover they needed to explain why they would be away from home
for six months. 

Mr. Isamuddin has not been seen since Sept. 11 and is believed to be hiding
in Indonesia, Malaysian and Singaporean authorities said. 

They have asked the Indonesian government to search for him and say they
are not satisfied that the Indonesians are looking very hard.

________

There is reference to an LA Times article of 3/30/02 saying "... Green Laboratory Medicine, a Malaysian government subcontractor that tested blood
and urine samples of foreign workers for drug use, was identified by ... "

___________

According to the FBI report and U.S. officials:
 

•  In January 2000, Khalid Al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhamzi, two hijackers aboard the jet that hit the Pentagon, met with other al-Qaeda members in a condominium in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The operatives included a suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000. That attack killed 17 sailors.

The meeting was hosted by Sufaat, a member of the militant Muslim group Jemaah Islamiah, which U.S. officials say is linked to Osama bin Laden. Soon after the meeting, Al-Midhar and Alhamzi entered the USA and enrolled at a flight school in San Diego.
 

• In October 2000, Sufaat met with Moussaoui in the same condominium. Law enforcement officials allege that he gave Moussaoui papers identifying Moussaoui as a ‘marketing consultant' for Infocus Tech, a Malaysian company. The papers were signed by ‘Yazid Sufaat, Managing Director.’ (Infocus Tech officials say Moussaoui never worked for the company.) Sufaat agreed to pay Moussaoui $2,500 a month and $35,000 up front, U.S. authorities say. Moussaoui arrived in the USA in February 2001 and deposited $32,000 in a bank in Norman, Okla. He attended flight schools in Norman and in Minnesota before he was arrested on immigration charges in August. FBI agents found the papers that mentioned Infocus Tech in Moussaoui's apartment in Minneapolis.

  
  Moussaoui now is being held in Alexandria, Va., awaiting a federal court trial in October. He could face the death penalty if convicted. Sufaat, 37, was arrested Dec. 9 as he returned to Kuala Lumpur from Afghanistan, where authorities say he fought against the U.S.-led coalition. He is one of 23 suspected al-Qaeda operatives who have been detained in Malaysia.

•  Also in October 2000, Sufaat received instructions from another alleged al-Qaeda operative, Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi, to purchase 4 tons of ammonium nitrate, a powerful explosive. Authorities say Ghozi, 30, an Indonesian also known as 'Mike’ and 'Abu Saad,' was a demolitions expert for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a separatist group seeking to create an Islamic state in the southern Philippines.

Sufaat bought the explosives through a company he owned called Green Laboratory Medicine, according to law enforcement sources. They say he planned to bomb the U.S., Israeli, British, and Australian embassies in Singapore, as well as office buildings that housed U.S.-based companies. Ghozi was arrested Jan. 15 in Manila by Philippine immigration officials acting on a tip from police in Singapore. Malaysian officials say the 4 tons of ammonium nitrate -- four times the amount used to destroy the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995 – has disappeared from the warehouse where the plotters had been storing it. They say they believe the explosives have been taken out of the country.”
http://www.malaysia.net/dap/lks1443.htm

___________

Here is a link to the indictment  against Moussaoui.  It makes for fascinating reading. http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/moussaouiindictment.htm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ranger]

ping. This is the first I realized that Yazid Sufaat was a microbiologist.

[ChadGore]

bump

[Ciexyz]

"Makes ya sick" bump.

[Free the USA]

Bump list

[TADSLOS]

This is the first I realized that Yazid Sufaat was a microbiologist

It would be interesting to know if there were any "professional" relationships developed between him and several microbiologists that have recently died violent deaths over the past 6 months.

[Fred Mertz]

Thanks for providing the link to get me to your research thread. I'm going to have to read this carefully when my time permits. Self-reference bump.

[aristeides]

Wasn't there what was supposed to be a bogus anthrax mailing from Malaysia to Microsoft in this country last year?

[Ranger]

Yes in fact there was a reported mailing of anthrax from Malaysia to Microsoft. I think the mailing went to their Utah office. Initial tests turned up positive but were later retracted. I don't know what finally became of the matter. It blows my mind that the Malaysians let her go unless there was some form of cooperation given by her family.

[Betty Jo]

http//www.worldcare.com.my/zop e/WorldCare/menu_frame/corpinf o/investor

What this dosn't say is that a Bin laden bro was a major investor!

[Betty Jo]

Lets try this.Find Maylaysia

http://www.worldcare.com.my/

[swarthyguy]

BUMP! Thanks.

Jihadis to the left of me, Jihadis to the right...

Here I am, stuck in the middle with you....

[tracer]

Diversity bump....