[Kami menyiarkan semua rencana ini sebagai bahan rujukan sahaja. Pendedahan terbaru ini mungkin akan menyebabkan pelbagai masalah akan menimpa Malaysia sehingga Mahathir dan polisnya pening kepala. Besar kemungkinan banyak wartawan terkemuka dunia akan datang untuk membongkar 'keganasan' di Malaysia. - Editor]

http://hoovnews.hoovers.com/fp.asp?layout=printnews& doc_id=NR200201271680.2_8cb400453490cbab

Newsweek: FBI Report Calls Malaysia A 'Primary Operational Launchpad

January 27, 2002 12:24pm

NEW YORK, Jan. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- A secret FBI report obtained by Newsweek says that Malaysia, previously underestimated as an Osama bin Laden stronghold, was a "primary operational launchpad for the Sept. 11 attacks." And U.S. intelligence sources believe a former Malaysian army captain, Yazid Sufaat, who was a member of Jemaah Islamiah, an Islamic extremist group that befriended bin Laden, helped develop a support network in Malaysia and throughout Southeast Asia, report Washington Bureau Chief Daniel Klaidman and Beijing Bureau Chief Melinda Liu in the February 4 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, January 28).

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 have since detained dozens of the group's members, Newsweek reports.

"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. In January 2000, Sufaat had held a meeting in his condominium there with top associates of bin Laden. Sources tell Newsweek that Sufaat was ordered by an Indonesian cleric with ties to Al Qaeda to hold the meeting. Two attendees -- Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhamzi -- went to the U.S. right after the meeting and enrolled in flight school. They were eventual Sept. 11 hijackers, piloting the plane that struck the Pentagon, Newsweek reports.

Later in 2000, Sufaat hosted Zacarias Moussaoui, the only suspected terrorist who has been arrested in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks. Moussaoui was also on his way to the U.S. for flight training. During the visit, Sufaat fixed up Moussaoui with the employment letters later discovered in his Minneapolis apartment. According to FBI sources, Sufaat also agreed to pay Moussaoui $2,500 a month during his stay in the U.S. along with a lump sum of $35,000 to get him started.

NewsWeek

http://www.msnbc.com/news/694791.asp?cp1=1

Malaysia: A Good Place to Lie Low

The qaeda fighter was ragged and underfed, just another prisoner dragged off the battlefield by the Northern Alliance. Searched by his captors, he turned over a small notebook with names and numbers scrawled inside. They didn't mean much to the men on the front lines, but to U.S. investigators piecing together the September 11 terror trail, one name in the book leapt out. It belonged to an obscure Malaysian businessman named Yazid Sufaat.

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.

Daniel Klaidman and Melinda Liu

http://202.160.235.81/my/content.phtml?1&010&&afpnews.cgi& cat=malaysia&story=020128044203.ml4lut87.txt

'No Malaysian connection' to US terror attacks: Mahathir

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 28 (AFP) - Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad Monday disputed a report that Malaysia was an operational launchpad for the September 11 terror attacks on the United States.

"As far as we know, there is no Malaysian connection in the attacks in the US," Mahathir told a news conference in response to a question about a report in the international magazine Newsweek.

"What we do know is that there are Malaysians who go to train in Pakistan and Afghanistan and have come back with the intention to destabilise this country."

Newsweek said in its latest edition that Malaysia was a primary operational launchpad for the airborne suicide attacks in New York and Washington, citing secret Federal Bureau of Investigation data.

The report said US intelligence sources believe a former Malaysian army captain, Yazid Sufaat, who was a member of the Islamic extremist group Jemaah Islamiah, helped develop a support network for chief terror suspect Osama bin Laden in Malaysia and throughout Southeast Asia.

In January 2000, Yazid held a meeting in his Kuala Lumpur condominium with top associates of bin Laden in accordance with instructions given to him by an Indonesian cleric with ties to al-Qaeda, bin Laden's terror network, the magazine reported.

Two of those in attendance -- Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhamzi -- later surfaced in the United States where they enrolled in flight school and later piloted the plane that struck the Pentagon, the report said.

Later in 2000, Yazid hosted French national of Moroccan descent Zacarias Moussaoui, the only man charged so far in connection with the September 11 attacks, according to the report.

Yazid gave Moussaoui the employment letters found in his Minneapolis apartment and agreed to pay him 2,500 dollars a month during his stay in the United States along with a lump sum of 35,000 dollars to get him started, Newsweek reported.

Asked specifically about Yazid's role, Mahathir said: "Let's see the evidence. It is very easy to say ...did he do it in Malaysia? Did he plan everything? I doubt it. It is too sophisticated an operation."

Yazod is however, in detention in Malaysia. He was arrested in December and is one of 23 alleged Islamic militants who have been detained under the Internal Security Act in the past two months.

Police say they are members of the Malaysian Militant Group (KMM), with links to bin Laden's Al Qaeda and other terrorist organisations.

Mahathir said the attackers had trained in the US and planned the attacks there, and thus "the launching pad is actually in America."

He said some individuals implicated in the US attacks might have come to Malaysia as tourists but authorities could not arrest them as it was not aware of their background or plans.

Last December, Malaysian investigators discovered that Yazid had ordered four tonnes of ammonium nitrate, a powerful explosive used in truck bombs, Newsweek said.

Authorities believe Yazid was linked to Jemaah Islamiah radicals in Singapore who planned to blow up the US and Israeli embassies there, Newsweek said.

"Kuala Lumpur is the perfect place for Arabs to lie low," the magazine quotes an intelligence source as saying.

The city attracts many Arab tourists, and Malaysian law allows Muslims to enter and exit the country without visas.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-1473966,00.html

Singapore: Expert Helped Terrorists

Saturday January 26, 2002 10:30 AM

SINGAPORE (AP) - An Indonesian explosives expert who was arrested recently in the Philippines helped suspected members of an al-Qaida-linked cell plot to blow up buildings in Singapore, the government said Saturday.

Indonesian Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi came to Singapore in October 2001 and helped suspected militants conduct surveillance of the American and Israeli embassies and other buildings, the Ministry of Home Affairs said in a news release.

Embassies and companies are on high security alert in Singapore, which was shocked earlier this month when the government said it had detained 13 militants with suspected links to the al-Qaida terrorist network who had been plotting to blow up the U.K., Israeli, Australian and U.S. embassies and other buildings in the wealthy Southeast Asian city-state.

Al-Ghozi, known as ``Mike,'' has been identified by the 13 detainees, who have been in custody since December, the statement said. Singapore believes that they are members of Jemaah Islamiyah, a cell with suspected links to al-Qaida.

Singapore has said that Al-Ghozi was one of the group's ringleaders.

Al-Ghozi was arrested after intelligence agents here tipped off their counterparts in the Philippines, the statement said. His arrest is an example of the ``close cooperation'' between Southeast Asian intelligence agencies in the fight against international terrorism, the statement said.

Philippines officials said more than a ton of TNT was unearthed after authorities arrested Al-Ghozi in Manila on Jan. 15.

``The explosives seized from Al-Ghozi were intended for terrorist activities in Singapore,'' Philippines army chief Lt. Gen. Jaime de los Santos told a news conference after the arrest.

Singapore also said Saturday that reports of three Singaporeans arrested in Malaysia were not accurate because one man - Shukry Omar Talib - denounced his Singaporean citizenship in 1987.

Shukry is the brother-in-law of two men held in Singapore - Faiz Abu Bakar Bafana and Fathi Abu Bakar Bafana.

Singapore officials said earlier that suspected operatives here knew Al-Ghozi only as ``Mike'' because he wanted to keep his identity secret. Mike and an Arab man known as ``Sammy'' had asked members of Jemaah Islamiyah to procure 17 tons of ammonium nitrate to build truck bombs. The group already had four tons of ammonium nitrate stored in Malaysia, the Singapore government said.

The amount of ammonium nitrate indicates the group had big plans. Timothy McVeigh used just two tons of ammonium nitrate in the 1995 attack on a U.S. federal building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people and wounded hundreds more.

Singapore authorities have said Al-Ghozi was a bomb-maker for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a large Muslim guerrilla group in the Philippines.

The Asian Wall Street Journal
25 January 2002

Terrorist Suspects Brought Bomb Material Into Malaysia

By LESLIE LOPEZ

Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- A Malaysian suspected of terrorist links to two hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S. ordered material that Southeast Asia-based intelligence officials believe was intended to make bombs to attack American targets in the region.

Yazid Sufaat, detained without trial in December by Malaysian police for his suspected links to al Qaeda, used a privately held trading company that he partially owns, Green Laboratory Medicine Sdn. Bhd., to order four metric tons of ammonium nitrate in October 2000, the officials said. It's unclear whether Mr. Yazid's company ever took delivery of the material, a fertilizer that is widely used to make bombs.

Malaysian and Singapore authorities are trying to establish whether Mr. Yazid's activities were directly connected to an alleged plot by Singapore Islamic militants to bomb the U.S. embassy and other targets in the city-state, the intelligence officials said. That plan was discovered and thwarted after police in both countries detained more than two dozen suspects in December.

Police investigations in Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines are uncovering a web of connections among Southeast Asian Islamic militants and their international counterparts in Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network in recent weeks. And 37-year-old Mr. Yazid has begun to feature prominently in this network.

Malaysian police arrested Mr. Yazid when he tried to re-enter Malaysia from Thailand in early December. Asia-based intelligence officials familiar with the matter said Malaysian police have established that Mr. Yazid slipped into Afghanistan in October, shortly after the U.S. began its military campaign against Taliban forces and Mr. bin Laden.

Police believe Mr. Yazid joined Taliban forces, serving in a medical unit in Kandahar and performing armed-patrol duty at night. When the U.S.-led bombing in Afghanistan escalated in mid-November, Mr. Yazid's Taliban commander ordered him to leave the country, according to the officials.

Mr. Yazid graduated with a degree in biochemistry from a U.S. university and later served as a captain in the Malaysian army. He first came under police surveillance in January 2000, after Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, two hijackers who were aboard the American Airlines plane that crashed into the Pentagon, stayed in his apartment near Kuala Lumpur on a visit to the Malaysian capital. The two men were already on a U.S. terror watchlist and Malaysian security officers had been alerted to their presence in the country.

Intelligence officials say Mr. Yazid was asked to host the visitors by Riduan Isamuddin, an Indonesian Muslim cleric who Malaysian police believe is a key figure in an al Qaeda-linked Southeast Asian terrorist network. Mr. Riduan, who is also known as Hambali, met with Messrs. Midhar and Hazmi at Mr. Yazid's apartment on several occasions during their visit.

Mr. Riduan also directed Mr. Yazid to host Zacarias Moussaoui -- another suspect in the Sept. 11 attack now facing charges in the U.S. -- when he visited Kuala Lumpur in September and again in October 2000, according to intelligence officials. During Mr. Moussaoui's October visit, Mr. Yazid gave him a letter appointing him the U.S. marketing agent for a small privately held Kuala Lumpur computer-software company called Infocus Tech Sdn. Bhd. Mr. Moussaoui later used the letter to help him obtain a U.S. visa, according to a U.S. grand jury indictment.

Mr. Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, has been charged in the U.S. with being an accomplice to the Sept. 11 attacks.

Documents filed at Malaysia's Registrar of Companies show that Mr. Yazid, who signed the Infocus Tech letter as the company's managing director, isn't listed as an executive or shareholder in the company. But records show that Mr. Yazid's wife, Sejahratul Dursina, is a substantial shareholder in Infocus Tech.

Ahmad Zaki Embi, Infocus Tech's managing director, declined to comment on the letter Thursday, saying Malaysian police are investigating the matter. Mr. Ahmad Zaki, in an interview, denied any knowledge of the letter and said he didn't know how it had come into Mr. Moussaoui's possession.

Ms. Sejahratul also declined to comment on the letter that Mr. Moussaoui received from her husband.

Asia-based intelligence officials and diplomats say Mr. Yazid placed the order for ammonium nitrate through Green Laboratory Medicine, which is listed as a general trading company, at about the same time he was hosting Mr. Moussaoui in Kuala Lumpur.