Quotes of the Day
Congressional staffer voltaire Mahasol was trying to ignore the crowd outside his window in downtown Zamboanga in the far south of the Philippines. Mainly old women and young children, they were waiting for a plane at the Edwin Andrews Air Base across the road, a free flight on the transport being one of the perks for relatives of military personnel.
Suddenly a great gout of smoke and flame blotted the crowd from his view, blowing in his window and smashing him out of his chair into the wall. "People were shouting. The whole site was covered with smoke," says Mahasol. Dazed, he walked outside. "I saw a dead woman. Then I saw an elderly woman who was calling for help. I dialed the Red Cross on my mobile phone."
The May 29 blast, which killed two people and injured 21 others, came from a backpack bomb. Philippine police believe it was orchestrated by an associate of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a Filipino separatist group. "There was a lapse in intelligence gathering," says an angry Mahasol. "It should be maximized to avoid another incident like this one."
Mahasol has every right to feel frustrated. Philippine police say the techniques used to assemble and detonate the bomb came from another group of terrorists whom authorities have been hunting for nearly six years: the Bali bombers who got away. Since killing 202 people in two nightclubs on the Indonesian island of Bali in 2002, the fugitives are believed to have murdered and maimed scores of innocents in new bombings. Investigators in Indonesia and the Philippines say they export their skills to other countries and terror groups and recruit more disciples for suicide attacks, all the while moving across borders, marrying, fathering children and promoting their violent ideology. Says General Made Mangku Pastika, the Indonesian police officer who led the investigation into the Bali bombings: "These people are not going to stop doing this terrorism. They are not only a threat for Bali but also for Indonesia, and maybe the Philippines also."
The popular belief is that the Jemaah Islamiyah terror cell that claimed responsibility for the Bali bombs has been decapitated. Three of the key operatives — Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, the smiling bomb builder, Ali Gufron, the devout preacher, and Imam Samudra, the fanatical field commander — have been convicted and sentenced to death, and are in the final stages of the appeals process.
Their widely publicized trials, combined with the arrest of more than 30 accomplices and the success of authorities in rounding up several hundred other JI operatives, give the impression that the case is almost closed. But four men whom Indonesian police believe were key participants in the plot have never been caught: a military commander, an electronics expert, a terrorist instructor and a fundamentalist teacher.
According to General Pastika, the commander, Zulkarnaen, helped organize the meetings near Solo, in central Java, where the Bali attack was planned. In transcripts of interviews with police seen by TIME, the convicted bombers said that electronics expert Dulmatin, a Malaysian, helped wire the bombs, installing four separate failsafe detonation switches for the giant car bomb. The prisoners said JI instructor Umar Patek packed the bomb's sacks of potassium chlorate and aluminum powder, while the teacher, Noordin Mohammed Top, was involved in logistics and strategy with the al-Qaeda go-between Hambali. The four men's faces have appeared on widely distributed wanted posters and on the U.S. State Department's Rewards for Justice website; $10 million is offered for Dulmatin and $1 million for Patek. But for nearly six years the fugitives have defied high-tech surveillance wizardry, million-dollar rewards and a manhunt by thousands of soldiers, spies and police across three countries in Southeast Asia.
Family Values
The lush jungle-covered hills and sapphire-blue seas of the southern Philippines look serene, but the region is a battleground where the MILF and its parent group, the Moro National Liberation Front, have long waged bloody struggles for independence. In the mid-1990s the MNLF brokered a deal with the government to share power in areas of Sulu, 900 km south of Manila. The MILF has been in sporadic peace talks over its claim for territory in the south, but a clash with government troops last year left 14 marines dead, 10 of them beheaded. Ranging across the rugged Mindanao terrain and further south is the Islamic terrorist Abu Sayyaf Group, which remains in open warfare with the government.
It was into this porous poorly regulated Muslim heartland that Dulmatin and Umar Patek and their families fled by boat from Indonesia and Malaysia in early 2003. Their escape was revealed after Dulmatin's wife, Haja Oemar "Istie" Sovie and the couple's children, were captured on Jolo Island in 2006.
In the report of her interrogation by Philippine police, seen by TIME, Istie describes her husband as a loving father who spoon-fed their young children and, even when on the run, insisted the whole family gather for meals. Istie claims that after arriving in the Philippines, Dulmatin and Patek traveled by small ferries and boats to the south, eventually settling in remote houses in Maguindanao in late 2003.
While authorities combed villages in Indonesia and Malaysia, Dulmatin and family were living quietly under aliases, living off local food and using coconuts and oil palm to produce oil and fuel. They used a small boat to travel around the often-flooded region. Hiding nearby were Patek and his local wife Rumaisah. Several times, the Dulmatin family hid in the jungle as the Philippine military launched air and artillery strikes against separatist rebels. Despite the stress of being on the run, the couple in late 2003 had their fourth child.
According to Istie, they moved often and Dulmatin spent months away, but he would always stay in touch, texting and calling her via cell phone. She told police she knew nothing of any terrorist activities. In late 2005, she was warned to flee ahead of a military operation. Taking the children, she headed southeast to Jolo, where she was arrested in 2006.
During the interrogation a tearful Istie said that wives are obliged to support their husbands even if the men are involved in armed jihad; her children's future, too, "may be sacrificed for this means." According to the transcript, she told police that Dulmatin and Patek linked up with local separatist groups to evade capture.
Istie told police that one visitor who dropped by her home was MILF commander Mokasid Delna. That relationship is important, says Kit Collier, an Australian political scientist who recently compiled a report on combating terrorism in Southeast Asia for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank. "Delna was in the same Afghan training camps in 1991 as Umar Patek, making him a key ally," Collier says. Zamboanga police chief Col. Lurimer Detran has told the media that Salahudin Hassan, who carried out the bombing at Edwin Andrews Air Base, is a relative of Delna.
U.S. and Philippine military officials believe the MILF-controlled areas are key boltholes for the bombers. "It's someplace safe where they can do their business without having to worry about local informants, because there are some hefty rewards out," says Col. Bill Coultrup, head of the U.S. Joint Special Operations Task Force that is helping the Philippine military hunt terrorists. MILF spokesman Eid Kabulu says there are no formal links between his group and terrorists. However, he says, "there might be some individuals who these people are close to or have some relationship with and who they're in some way able to exploit."
Network of Violence
While breakaway elements of the MILF are accused of sheltering the bombers, so is Abu Sayyaf. One former member of that group told TIME the bombers are seen as heroes. "They know how to to preach, how to provide financial assistance, and they know how to make bombs," says the former terrorist over tea and sweets in his village home on Jolo. "They are valued." Philippine police confirm that Abu Sayyaf has embraced Dulmatin's bomb tutorials. Superintendent Leocardio Santiago, who heads the Special Action Force, says Dulmatin's bomb-making handiwork has been apparent in a number of terror attacks, including the one on the Zamboanga air base.
In Patikul, on Jolo island, General Juancho Sabban, who heads the country's anti-terrorism task force, gives a guided tour of a former Abu Sayyaf base close to one of his forward operating bases. "See how difficult it is to see the bunkers," he says, striding nimbly through the chest-high grass that covers the hillside. Hidden in the grass are the 2-m-deep spider holes from which Abu Sayyaf guerrillas popped up to kill six of his men during a 2006 firefight.
Here soldiers discovered compact discs and files relating to JI operations, including a JI spreadsheet carefully documenting the expenditure of €40,000 on food, motor boats and vans, and even cell-phone cards. "I think it was Umar Patek who was doing the group's accounts," says Sabban. ICG terror expert Collier thinks Patek is more than just a terrorist bean counter. "He commands Abu Sayyaf Group forces and he can be seen as an ASG commander in his own right," Collier says, "as well as a JI freelancer. Dulmatin and Patek are both still in communication with allies in Indonesia, and there have been attempts over the last few years to smuggle suicide bombers from Java to the Philippines."
Collier warns that if peace talks between the Philippine government and the MILF breaks down, Dulmatin and Patek would be well placed to launch further terrorist attacks. "There's no doubt they are very canny operatives. Patek in particular is a combat veteran of impressive credentials, an Afghan veteran who has also been fighting — going back to the 1990s — alongside the MILF and the ASG."
While Patek and Dulmatin were establishing themselves in the Philippines, says Pastika, their two fellow fugitives relied on an extensive network of supporters and family in central Java, Indonesia, to escape and regroup. Of all the wanted men, Noordin Top is regarded as the most dangerous, accused by Indonesian police of orchestrating the bombings of the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in 2003, the Australian embassy in 2004 and the second Bali bombings in 2005. "He's very good at recruiting people and getting them to commit suicide, not at making bombs," says General Pastika. The ICG, in a 2006 report on Noordin's networks, told how he would "ripen" suicide bombers or "bridegrooms" for bombings.
In a videotape discovered by police in a 2005 raid on a JI safe house in central Java, a balaclava-clad man believed to be Noordin is heard ranting: "America, Australia, England and Italy are all our enemies. We especially remind Australia that you, [then Foreign Minister Alexander] Downer and [then Prime Minister John] Howard, are killing Australia, leading it into darkness and misfortune and mujahidin terror." In May 2004, despite being the subject of one of Indonesia's largest manhunts, Noordin managed to marry his second wife, Munfiatun Al-Fitri, who, according to the ICG report, had wanted to marry a "warrior for Islam." Munfiatun was captured in 2005 and served a short sentence in prison for harboring the fugitive.
Sydney Jones, who heads ICG's Indonesian office, says there are two main theories about Noordin's location. One is that he is living in central Java "under JI's enforced protection on the condition of non-activity, spending most of his time reading downloads from the Internet." The other theory, Jones says, is based on claims by the recently arrested JI commander Abu Husna that Noordin had been helped to escape to Malaysia. Indonesian police sources tell TIME the chances that Noordin has escaped from Indonesia are very slight. "Why? He's got very good networks here," says a former officer with the country's counterterrorism unit, Detachment 88, who asked not to be named.
Even less is known about the fourth fugitive, Zulkarnaen. Dubbed "the grandfather" by the Indonesian media because of his seniority, the 44-year-old has virtually vanished and does not appear to be linked to any recent terror plots, says Jones. Although the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center lists Zulkarnaen as one of al-Qaeda's "point men" in Southeast Asia, Jones doubts he is active in the JI leadership. "What's striking is that he doesn't come up in conversations or interrogations. It's as though he is a non-person."
The Search Goes On
Tawi Tawi is a small island covered in dense jungle in the far south of the Philippines. It's a smugglers paradise, with weapons coming from the north, rice from Thailand, and illegal immigrants and other goods often hidden in the cargo holds of the hundreds of small boats that ply the tropical waters. Late one night in January, a group of Philippine special forces troops slipped out of their boats and headed through the mangroves on Tawi Tawi's western side. They crept through the thickets and surrounded a cluster of houses in a forest clearing.
The operation was based on a tip-off that a group of high-level terrorists who had been involved in a kidnapping were lurking at a local village. According to Naval Special Operations Lieutenant Christopher Pantaleon, his men surprised a group of armed men who fled, shooting, into a ravine at the back of the village. "They already know that our guys are after them. They have very good escape routes," Pantaleon says. "Two got away and there were two killed. Of the two who got away, one is Dulmatin, we think. He was wounded at the back and in the legs."
A search failed to find a body, but two weeks later a tip-off led the troops to a grave. The Philippine military promptly announced that Dulmatin might have been killed, but Indonesian authorities later announced that DNA tests from the Tawi Tawi corpse did not match samples from Dulmatin's family.
The U.S. military agrees with the ICG's Jones and Collier that Dulmatin is still alive; Jones thinks he has been in contact with associates in Indonesia. The U.S. military is advising and training Phillippine troops, but cannot take part in combat operations. "With our rules of engagement," says one American, "if I saw Dulmatin walking on a beach in front of me there would be almost nothing I could do without Philippine assistance."
For the U.S. serviceman and his comrades, the front line is a nondescript, windowless building on Jolo island, where a live video feed is playing on a giant plasma screen. The pictures show an aerial view of mountains and sea broadcast from a small drone buzzing high in the tropical air. The drone is seeking terrorist targets and is one resource of the network of U.S. troops working with local commanders.
More controversial is the U.S.-funded Rewards for Justice program. Collier suggests the money and kudos for captors are complicating the hunt. "People jump the gun," he says. "There's a degree of competition among the various services to grab the headlines, and all of this is worsened by the Rewards for Justice program." Some military sources say the program has seen certain commanders refusing to share information in the hope of catching the terrorists by themselves. U.S. State Department officials in the Philippines say those claims are false and point to successful cases such as the $5 million paid to an informant who helped them kill Abu Sayyaf leader Khaddy Janjalani in 2006.
In Indonesia the hunt is more subtle. The intelligence service and the police's Detachment 88 rely on electronic and cell-phone surveillance for information about the suspects' whereabouts. The Australian Federal Police have been working closely with the Indonesian police since the start of the Bali terror investigation, but they refuse to detail their involvement.
Detachment 88 has had some success against the terrorists, killing Doctor Azahari, one of Noordin's close associates and a fellow bomb-maker. In 2006, the unit surrounded a house in Wonosobo, in central Java. The occupants fought back, and at the end of the gun battle two were dead and one was arrested. One of those killed was suspected of being Top's right-hand man, and the home had recently been used by the fugitive. Says Ansyaad Mbai, the head of the counterterrorism desk at the Indonesian Ministry of Politics and Security Affairs: "We are not frustrated and we are still eager to get [Noordin]. But the police are being very careful not to make mistakes."
Jones agrees the police are lifting their game in the hunt for Noordin. "I think there were points in 2003 and 2004 where they could have been more professional," she says, "but I don't think you can complain of incompetence recently." Zulkarnaen, however, is a different matter. "I don't even think the police are looking that hard for him," says Jones. "He's not considered likely to engage [in terrorist activity]. The people in JI are not even sure what he's doing." Indonesian police bristle at the suggestion that they have pulled back from pursuing Zulkarnaen. "We still have some people who are working very hard," says Pastika. "I trust those people."
In Bali the Western tourists in shorts and T shirts are once again spilling drunkenly on to the streets around Kuta's thumping nightclubs. Only a few of the bars still boast security in the form of a bored policeman toting a machine-gun. The revelers are oblivious to the fact that fugitives like Noordin are still on the loose, but the survivors of the bombings and those who lost relatives have not forgotten. "I hate them. If they are still free, I'm very worried that there could be a third bomb in Bali," says local resident Ni Putu Prihana Dewi, a cashier who was working in the Sari Club that terrible night and bears a 20-cm burn scar along her forearm. Sydney man Louie Zervos, whose sister and two cousins died in the blasts, is blunt. "It's disgusting. Everything is in the too-hard basket," he says. "I wish Australia had invaded Indonesia and got [the terrorists] themselves."
Pastika, who is now running for governor of Bali, has faith in the investigation. "The reason they have escaped for so long is they are lucky," he says. "Sometimes you can do everything — the investigation, the forensics and the hard work — but they escape. But I'm very sure it is just a matter of time." In an interview in prison, Bali bomber Imam Samudra warned that there will be further atrocities if he and his associates are executed. Catching the remaining bombers may indeed be just a matter of time, but time may be running out.
Jason Tedjasukmana/Jakarta And Arlyn Dela Cruz/Manila
- Rory Callinan/Jolo