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CNN Live At Daybreak

Reports Out of Southeast Asia Say Bin Laden Trying to Spread Brand of Terrorism There

Aired July 08, 2002 - 05:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Intelligence reports out of Southeast Asia say Osama bin Laden is trying to spread his brand of terrorism there, sort of a franchise terrorism move.

Our Maria Ressa has been following the plans to unify Muslim separatist groups.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARIA RESSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The plan breathtaking -- to create an Islamic state from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and parts of the Philippines and Thailand. Like a corporation, intelligence officials say Osama bin Laden franchised terrorism, co-opting Muslim separatist groups in Southeast Asia, offering them a dream of a Muslim state if they merged their goals.

TONY TAN, SINGAPORE DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: But al Qaeda has been able to co-opt all these regional elements and movements and given them focus and organization to strike against Americans and American interests throughout the world.

RESSA: Al Qaeda's network in Southeast Asia is led by two Indonesian clerics, Abu Bakar Baasyir, the spiritual leader, called the Asian Osama bin Laden, he functions much like this corporation's board of directors, providing vision and setting policies. Wanted by Singapore and Malaysia, the 63-year-old Baasyir operates freely in Indonesia, where he is openly campaigning for an Islamic state. Below him is Riudan Isamuddin, the CEO and operations chief, also known as Hambali. The 36-year-old Afghan war veteran was part of a terrorist cell busted by Philippine police in 1995. Three of its members are serving life sentences in U.S. prisons for a plot to bomb American planes in Asia.

They had also begun recruiting pilots for suicide missions, to crash commercial planes into buildings like the Pentagon and World Trade Center. Intelligence officials in the Philippines say they believe that 1995 plan was the blueprint for September 11.

Two members of that cell, Hambali and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (ph), evaded arrest in 1995 and moved further up al Qaeda's corporate ladder. Mohammed became one of bin Laden's trusted lieutenants, a key planner, U.S. officials say, of September 11. Hambali is responsible for the growth of sleeper cells across the region and for plans to attack U.S. naval ships and embassies in Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines.

He sent members for training to Afghanistan and the southern Philippines, where a training camp was set up by the MILF, the largest separatist group there.

According to the Singapore intelligence report, from 1996 to 1998, over 1,000 Indonesian fighters were trained in the Philippines. The goal is jihad.

And there is a new battleground in Southeast Asia, Ambon in Indonesia. More than 10,000 people have died there in Muslim- Christian violence since 1999.

WONG KAN SENG, SINGAPORE HOME AFFAIRS MINISTER: Ambon, in a way, provides an avenue or a place for some of these jihadists to go and get experience. It is certainly a place for them to get the practice in the fire that they are seeking.

RESSA: Intelligence officials say Hambali was behind a spate of bombings in the Philippines and Indonesia in 2000. He met and paid his operatives in places like this fast food restaurant in Kuala Lumpur.

(on camera): One man Hambali paid in that restaurant was Indonesian Fatur Ahman Al Ghozi. He was arrested in the Philippines early this year. Al Ghozi went to the same Islamic boarding school run by the man at the top of this corporate ladder, Abu Bakar Baasyir, an example of the personal ties that bind this network.

Maria Ressa, CNN, Manila.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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