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Terrorism: dramatic turn to probe

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE Nov. 27. The anti-terror operations in South-East Asia took a dramatic turn today, with the Indonesian authorities indicating that a terror-suspect in their custody, Imam Samudra, a native of the archipelago-state, had `confessed' to knowing `Hambali'.

As `Hambali' is the alleged pointman for the Al-Qaeda in this region, a step may have now been taken towards the resolution of the jigsaw puzzle of a suspected inter-state network of terror.

However, `Hambali', also an Indonesian, is still very much at large, and a definitive profile of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), which he is suspected to command at the operational level, is far from complete.

The intelligence communities in several South-East Asian countries tend to believe that the JI is the Al-Qaeda's outreach-outfit in this region. Abu Bakar Baasyir (Bashir), an Indonesian cleric, has not so far resiled from his assertions that he has had nothing to do with either the Al-Qaeda or even the JI, whose "spiritual leader'' he is supposed to be in terms of the general profiling of this outfit at this time.

On a separate but related track, the Malaysian authorities on Tuesday announced more arrests of alleged terrorists including at least one person who was credited with the disclosure about a tactical shift towards the planning of "suicide-bombing'' as a terror technique in this region as well.

This acquired importance in the context of an ongoing line of investigation that the recent Bali blasts, the worst mass-terrorist strike after the "9/11'' blitzkrieg of "kamikaze'' terror, might have been caused by a suicide-bomber.

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