senior Indonesian al-Qaida operative needed in the 2002 Bali bombings has been arrested in Pakistan, a uncommon high-profile capture inside the war on terror that might present valuable intelligence in regards to the organization and feasible future plots.
Umar Patek, a suspected member with the al-Qaida-linked militant group Jemaah Islamiyah, was arrested previously this year in Pakistan, foreign intelligence sources said Tuesday.
It is not clear if Pakistan stumbled on Patek or his seize was the outcome of an intelligence tip. Details about what he was doing in Pakistan also stay murky, raising questions about no matter if he was there to plan an attack with al-Qaida’s top operational leaders because the 10th anniversary with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks looms more than the U.S.
Patek, 40, a Javanese Arabic guy, is well-known to intelligence companies across the planet. He is believed to get served because the group’s deputy subject commander within the nightclub bombings that left 202 folks dead, several of them foreigners.
The U.S. was providing a $1 million reward for the arrest from the slight Patek – who’s referred to as the “little Arab ” – in the assault that killed seven Americans.
News of his arrest came from two intelligence officials in Indonesia and Philippines. Patek’s precise whereabouts were not right away identified. Each spoke on problem of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the information and facts.
The question of what to perform with him could become a important indicator of how President Barack Obama will deal with main terrorist suspects captured overseas. However, American officials declined to comment on the situation.
Beneath former President George W. Bush, he most likely would have already been moved in to the CIA’s network of solution prisons. As an example, 1 of Patek’s accused co-conspirators inside the nightclub bombing, Hambali, put in a long time within the prison program and is also now being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
However the CIA’s solution prisons are closed and Obama is attempting to empty Guantanamo, not add new inmates.
Patek is believed to have already been amongst a group of Indonesians, Malaysians and Filipinos who traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan throughout the 1980s and 1990s for coaching and fighting.
On their return to Southeast Asia, they shaped Jemaah Islamiyah, blamed for any string of suicide bombings focusing on nightclubs, eating places, accommodations, as well as a Western embassy in Indonesia. Collectively more than 260 men and women have died.
Patek fled for the southern Philippines after the Bali bombings, seeking refuge and training with each the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the biggest Muslim separatist group, and later, the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf, protection experts have stated.
But he is thought to possess remained seriously engaged in Jemaah Islamiyah operations at property. His arrest in Pakistan is most likely to increase concerns over how these kinds of a high-profile terrorist can journey across global borders. There are actually also most likely to become competing interests among intelligence agencies as each and every jockey for control more than Patek.
In March 2010, Patek was believed to become inside the Sulu province within the much southern Philippines. Based on the Jamestown Foundation, a nationwide safety coverage institute in Washington, Patek was one with the “last senior JI (Jemaah Islamiyah) commanders with significant experience” within the first Afghan al-Qaida camps and longstanding ties towards the global jihadist network and its donors.
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