INDONESIA'S TOP THREE WANTED TERRORISTS AND A

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 JAKARTA 013509

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR S/CT, EAP/MTS, DS/IP/EAP, DS/DSS/ITA, DS/CC
DOJ FOR CTS THORNTON, AAG SWARTZ
FBI FOR ETTUI/SSA ROTH
NCTC WASHDC

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/14/2026
TAGS: PTER ASEC EFIN KCRM KHLS KVPR CVIS KPAO ID
SUBJECT: INDONESIA'S TOP THREE WANTED TERRORISTS AND A
PROMISING NEW LEAD

Classified By: Political Officer David Willis for reasons 1.4(b),(d).


1. (S) Summary: Despite hundreds of terrorists arrested by
Indonesian authorities in the past several years, three top
operatives linked to Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) remain on
Indonesia's "Most Wanted" list. Of these, Malaysian Noordin
Mohammad Top is well known; the other two, Indonesians Abu
Dujanah and Zulkarnaen, are not. They share deep, formative
experiences at JI's Lukmanul Hakiem pesantren in Johor,
Malaysia, the militant training camps of the
Pakistan-Afghanistan border region and JI-led attacks and
activities in Indonesia's communal conflict areas in recent
years. This suggests that they may well be in touch with one
another even as they remain underground. Police hope leads
on Dujanah, who is currently under surveillance, will put
them back on the trail of the other two. The INP has shared
terrorist-related information such as this with us in the
past and we expect this to continue. End Summary.


2. (C) Indonesia's leading CT priority, Noordin Mohammad Top,
remains at large and his current whereabouts are unknown. He
and the next two CT targets, Abu Dujanah and Zulkarnaen (both
aliases),are all linked to the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI)
terrorist network, which remains active in Southeast Asia.
As such, they continue to pose a serious threat to Western
and Indonesian interests, despite the several hundred
terrorist-related arrests and prosecutions that have whittled
away at terrorist ranks over the past few years.


3. (C) The linked personal histories of these figures help
keep a network like JI together and make it likely that they
remain in touch with one another. Most salient are their
early ties to the Lukmanul Hakiem pesantren in Johor,
Malaysia, established by JI founders Abu Bakar Ba'asyir and
the late Abdullah Sungkar. In the late 1980s and 1990s,
Lukmanul Hakiem was home to JI's Mantiqi 1 and an incubator
for many of JI's top terrorists. These ties were further
strengthened by months or even years together in training
camps in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the southern Philippines,
and by shared experiences, if not collaboration, since 2000
in Indonesia's terrorist attacks and communal conflicts.

NUMBER ONE: NOORDIN TOP


4. (C) Noordin Mohammad Top is without a doubt Indonesia's
top CT priority. The Indonesian National Police (INP)
maintains a constant nationwide manhunt for this
co-conspirator of the late Malaysian bombmaker Azahari bin
Hussein. INP investigators believe the 38-year-old Top
continues to be the main driver behind JI's suicide bomb
operations. Several local CT observers, including JI expert
Sidney Jones, have said they strongly suspect the charismatic
and persuasive Top leads a JI splinter group and may no
longer part of the main JI organization, although he likely
views his group as the true JI vanguard. In early 2006, Top
called his group "Tanzim Qoidat al-Jihad" (various
spellings),although other names, such as "Thoifah Muqotilah"
(various spellings) may also refer to his group. Jones says
Top is not a religious scholar and is not fluent in Arabic,
which forces him to rely heavily on others in developing
ideological and doctrinal positions. According to Jones,
Mukhlas, currently on death row for his role in the 2002 Bali
bombing and Top's longtime mentor, records religious speeches
onto cassette tapes which Top has used as a recruitment tool.


5. (C) As of early December, it appeared that Top's trail
again had turned cold. Top's keen operational tradecraft has
kept him one step ahead of investigators, and he has been
remarkably successful in recruiting new members and planning
operations while on the run. INP CT investigators believe
Top is highly disciplined, uses various alias personas and
disguises, and strictly avoids using cell phones, which are
easily monitored, instead relying on trusted JI couriers to
communicate. Since Azahari's death, it is unclear what
contacts Top maintains with other senior JI figures, but it
appears clear that JI network links are instrumental in
helping him to evade capture. These couriers and support
networks were essential in locating Azahari, and may likely
prove useful in stopping Top.


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6. (C) As in the cases of other key JI terror suspects, the
INP is focusing its search for Top on Java, mainly in the
central and eastern provinces. However, INP Inspector
General Gories Mere (the Deputy INP Chief Investigator),INP
General Bekto Suprapto (the head of Special Detachment 88),
and INP General Surya Dharma (head of the INP's CT Taskforce
"Team Bomb") told the Ambassador on December 8 that they were
following up on leads that Top was now in South Sumatra,
possibly in Lampung or Palembang. They also said that
developments in the case of JI figure Abu Dujanah (below) had
yielded evidence suggesting Dujanah might be in contact with
Top. Investigators hoped this might allow them to capture
both longtime CT targets.


7. (U) Top has been linked with the JI network for over 15
years. He attended Lukmanul Hakiem pesantren and, after
graduating from a Malaysian university, returned to teach at
the pesantren in the 1990s. He developed relationships there
with others who later joined in conducting terrorist
operations such as 2002 and 2005 Bali attacks, the 2003
bombing of Jakarta's Marriott Hotel, and the 2004 bombing of
the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. At the school, Top met
several other JI figures, including Hambali, Mukhlas, and Abu
Dujanah, all of whom were teachers there. He also met
Azahari among the school's religious study circles. Other
contacts from that time included Afghan veteran and Ngruki
graduate Mohammad Rais, currently serving a seven year prison
sentence for his role in the first Bali attacks and the
Marriott bombing. Rais' sister became Top's first wife in

1998. Top's second wife, whom he married in a secret wedding
in 2004, was arrested just four months after the wedding and
was sentenced to three years for hiding Top. She is not due
for release until 2007, but there are unconfirmed rumors that
she already has been released.

NUMBER TWO: AINUL BAHRI, A.K.A. ABU DUJANAH


8. (C) The death or capture of Top unquestionably would be a
major coup for Indonesia's CT effort and a significant loss
to JI recruitment and operations. The hype surrounding the
search for Top, however, might cause some GOI officials to
see his arrest as constituting the final blow to Indonesia's
immediate terror threat. Top's Malaysian citizenship also
may tempt some GOI officials publicly to declare the
Top-Azahari episode as the end to a foreign-based terror
threat. In reality, there are other JI-linked figures at
large who have the ability and motivation to carry out
attacks using explosives and can recruit and enlist support
from both inside and outside the JI network. Among them are
several jihad veterans trained in the camps of Afghanistan
and the southern Philippine.


9. (C) One of these key figures is the Indonesian Ainul Bahri
(aka Abu Dujanah),who spent several years in Afghanistan
training camps (approx. 1988-1991) before becoming a teacher
at Lukmanul Hakiem. His extensive tactical experience in
Afghanistan, and later as a trainer in the southern
Philippines in the late 1990s, his fluency in Arabic, and his
experience as personal secretary to JI spiritual leader Abu
Bakar Ba'asyir give Dujanah both operational and ideological
credibility.


10. (S) Private comments by INP investigators in November and
December suggest INP investigators may see Dujanah as a
greater overall threat than Top. Some JI observers believe
Dujanah may have assumed command of JI as early as 2003 when
Abu Rusdan, who had replaced then-imprisoned Abu Bakar
Ba'asyir, was arrested. Benny Mamoto, one of the INP's top
CT investigators, has suggested that the high number of
investigative trails leading to Dujanah was evidence of his
central role. Another lead INP investigator appeared to
confirm Dujanah's central role in pointing to evidence of a
possible link between Dujanah and several extremists
currently at large in Central Sulawesi. He speculated that
Dujanah might be planning to carry out an attack there,
possibly before the end of this year. Nasir Abas, a former
JI leader arrested in 2003 who now closely cooperates with
the INP, also told us in early December that he suspected
Dujanah played a more important role in command and control
than previously thought.

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11. (C) Dujanah's central is most likely exercised in the
context of a "flat" organizational structure within JI.
Mamoto in early December reiterated his belief that JI was in
the "emergency" state described in the JI's guidebook (the
"pupji"),i.e. a state where a central leader retained some
level of operational control but where cells had considerable
operational autonomy. In a similar vein, Nasir described JI
as in a state of "controlled decentralization" in which much
of the hierarchical JI structure was gone, leaving more
operational responsibility to individual cells while one
leader, possibly Dujanah, retained some operational approval
and guidance.


12. (S) An Australian Federal Police (AFP) report which was
recently shared with us confirmed the INP had located Dujanah
and currently had him under surveillance in Central Java.
The INP surveillance team had allegedly observed Dujanah
meeting with his son, Yusuf. The AFP report further
confirmed the INP intended to determine whether surveillance
of Dujanah would provide any clues as to Top's whereabouts.

NUMBER THREE: ARIS SUMARSONO, A.K.A. ZULKARNAEN


13. (C) Aris Sumarsono (aka Zulkarnaen) is another key JI
figure currently among Indonesia's most wanted and is
generally regarded as JI's military chief since Hambali's
2003 arrest. Zulkarnaen is reportedly fluent in Arabic and
possibly English as well, and formerly had Al Qaeda contacts,
although it is unclear whether these have been maintained in
recent years. Many JI members view him as an operational
father-figure, according to Nasir Abas. Mamoto describes
Zulkarnaen as intelligent and operationally savvy, reportedly
observing INP operations and altering his own operations
accordingly. Like Top and Dujanah, Zulkarnaen also uses
couriers to communicate within the network, according to INP
investigator Mamoto. Mamoto adds that Zulkarnaen is a
recruiter with a charismatic personality and a personal touch.


14. (C) An Indonesian, Zulkarnaen attended the Al Mukmin
("Ngruki") pesantren during the period 1975-1980 (approximate
dates) and subsequently Indonesia's prestigious Gajah Madah
University in Yogyakarta, Central Java, where he studied
biology. He was a protg of Sungkar and was selected in
1985 to join the first group of future JI leaders sent to
Afghanistan for training, during which time Zulkarnaen forged
strong ties with Hambali, Dujanah, other future JI leaders
and Al Qaeda members. Zulkarnaen actively coordinated JI
military activities in Ambon in the late 1990s, and may have
played a central role in planning JI's main attacks in recent
years, possibly including the 2005 Bali attacks. In 2003, he
reportedly set up a new group of elite JI special forces,
including suicide bombers, called "Laskar Khos," but it is
unclear whether the group remains active. Some local JI
observers have told us Zulkarnaen currently may be focusing
his efforts on dakwah, or proselytizing activities, in
response to internal strategic changes in JI. Comments by
INP investigators suggest they can only guess at Zulkarnaen's
whereabouts, most likely in Java but possibly as far away as
the southern Philippines. His wife and children reportedly
reside at the Ngruki pesantren in Solo.
HEFFERN