BANGKOK, 16 August 2003 — Hambali, Al-Qaeda’s top man in Southeast Asia and the suspected mastermind of a string of deadly bombings including the Bali attacks, has been captured in Thailand, handed over to US authorities and flown out of the country, officials said yesterday.
Asia’s most wanted man, now clean-shaven and his face altered by plastic surgery, was arrested with a woman by Thai and US officials in Ayutthaya, the ancient Thai capital, 80 km (50 miles) north of Bangkok, a senior Thai general said.
“A special flight from the United States picked him up at Bangkok airport on Wednesday morning,” said the general, who declined to be identified.
US President George W. Bush hailed the capture. “He’s a known killer. Hambali was one of the world’s most lethal terrorists. He is no longer a problem,” he said.
Confusion surrounded the whereabouts of Hambali. Hambali, born Riduan Isamuddin, and his wife were flown home to Indonesia, a Thai government minister said. Indonesia’s police chief said he was unaware of the transfer and a US official in Bangkok said Washington was unlikely to reveal his location soon.
Hambali is wanted in Indonesia as the suspected planner of many attacks across the archipelago, including last October’s Bali bombings, which killed 202 people in two nightclubs.
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Hambali’s arrest followed local leads, but would not say where he had been taken.
The son of peasant farmers on the main Indonesian island of Java, Hambali crossed into Thailand last week from Laos using a fake Spanish passport, a police general said. “He was not wearing a beard and he had had plastic surgery,” he said. “He used a Spanish passport with a long, confusing Spanish name.”
US officials said Hambali was being interrogated but would not say where.
Governments across Asia and in Australia breathed sighs of relief at the capture of a man tagged one of the world’s most dangerous. He had been on the run since at least 2000.
