US Captures Bali Bomb Suspect

The CIA was yesterday interrogating a man accused of being al-Qaida's most senior leader in south-east Asia in the hope of forestalling a new terrorist attack, after he was arrested allegedly while planning a new operation.

Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, was captured in Thailand in a joint operation between the CIA and Thai security forces in the past two days. He was immediately transferred to American custody and is being interrogated at a secret location, US and Thai officials said.

"Hambali was one of the world's most lethal terrorists who is suspected of planning major terrorist operations," President George Bush told marines at a military base outside San Diego. "He is no longer a problem to those of us who love freedom, and neither are nearly two-thirds of known senior al-Qaida leaders, operational managers, and key facilitators who have been captured or have been killed."

Reuters news agency quoted an unnamed Indonesian official as saying Hambali had been captured "in Thailand, yesterday, at midday."

Hambali, a 37-year-old scholar and militant, is suspected of masterminding the bombing of a Bali nightclub last year in which more than 200 people died, and a Marriott hotel in Jakarta last week.

As one of the leaders of Indonesia's militant Jemaah Islamiyah movement, he is also believed to have played a role in preparing the September 11 attacks, arranging a meeting between al-Qaida planners and two of the hijackers in Malaysia.

A senior administration official said US intelligence had reason to believe that he was planning a major new attack, probably in south-east Asia.

"Sources indicate that an al-Qaida leader in Pakistan earlier this year provided Hambali a large sum of money for a major attack.

"Information obtained from a senior al-Qaida detainee and corroborated by other sources indicates al-Qaida tasked Hambali shortly after September 11 with recruiting pilots to participate in additional hijackings inside the US."

Thailand's Nation newspaper reported that Hambali had been caught in the central temple town of Ayutthaya with explosives and weapons he intended to use in an attack on the Asian Pacific economic cooperation summit in October, due to be attended by Mr Bush. US officials said they could not confirm that the conference was the target."

Jemaah Islamiyah is a regional al-Qaida affiliate trying to impose an Islamic government across south-east Asia. In the 1980s, Hambali fought in Afghanistan, where he met the al-Qaida leaders Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He became the only person from his region to have a seat on al-Qaida's military committee.

He is believed to have coordinated a string of church bombings in the Philippines and was also linked to an abortive plot to blow up a string of western embassies in Singapore in December 2001.

Hambali set up a January 2000 meeting in Kuala Lumpur, which US officials believe was used to plan both the September 11 attacks, and the suicide boat attack on the USS Cole in Yemen. The meeting was attended by two Saudis who took part in the September 11 hijackings, and possibly by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

He was also linked to Ramzi Yousef, now in a US jail for his involvement in a 1993 attack on the World Trade Centre. The two reportedly collaborated in a foiled plot in 1995 to blow up 12 airliners simultaneously as they flew from Asia to the US.

For years, Hambali has been the most wanted man in the region, flitting between Indonesia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Thailand and Malaysia.

He was born in Indonesia's West Java province, a hotbed of Islamic militancy in the 1940s and 50s, and the scene of a religious rebellion known as Darul Islam which was finally crushed by government troops in the 60s. He rose to the leadership of Jemaah Islamiyah, alongside its spiritual leader Abu Bakar Ba'aysir, who is now on trial for treason.

Tobias Ellwood of Bournemouth, whose brother was killed in Bali last year, told PA News: "I do not want to see this man tucked away in Camp X-Ray, but placed on trial in an international court."