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. JAKARTA 00013509 002 OF 003 ¶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. JAKARTA 00013509 003 OF 003 ¶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