Hambali Undergoes Questioning

Al Qaeda's alleged Asian mastermind is being interrogated at a secret location by U.S. investigators, Thai officials said Friday.

Hambali, an Indonesian whose real name is Riduan Isamuddin, had been in Thailand more than a month when he was arrested following a tip off, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said.

"We had been following Hambali for several days and it happened that we just arrested him," Thaksin told reporters.

"Right now we are in the process of interrogating him with the allied countries. I cannot say where," Thaksin said. He refused to elaborate or say whether the 39-year-old Hambali was still in Thailand.

Military sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Hambali, was handed over to U.S. authorities and flown out of the country on Wednesday.

Several Southeast Asian governments said they also wanted to question the man suspected of being the operational head of Jemaah Islamiyah, a terrorist network affiliated with al Qaeda and blamed for a string of bombings in the region.

Hambali was arrested Monday at an apartment building on the outskirts of Ayutthaya, a major tourist attraction with its dozens of ancient Buddhist temples.

Thaksin said the arrest came after a tip from residents.

"We arrested the suspect after people notified police about the appearance of the foreigner. And after we checked his passport, we found that he's the one that's wanted by several countries," Thaksin said, according to Thailand's state radio network.

Plainclothes officers smashed down the door of Hambali's one-room apartment and took him away after a violent struggle, residents in the building told The Associated Press.

Hambali had lived in the building, where all the other residents are Buddhists, for only two weeks, the other tenants said.

Hambali is suspected in a number of attacks blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah, including the Aug. 5 bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta that killed 12 people and the October 2002 bombings of nightclubs on the Indonesian island of Bali that killed 202 people.

Jemaah Islamiyah is also believed to have been behind a foiled plot to bomb Western targets in Singapore in late 2001, and a series of church bombings in Indonesia and the Philippines in December 2000.

Authorities also say Hambali is connected to the Sept. 11 plot, although whether he played a direct role is unclear.

Bali's police chief, Maj. Gen. I Made Pastika, who led the inquiry into the nightclub bombings, said Hambali was in U.S. custody and had not been brought to Indonesia.

Hambali is also wanted by Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines.

The arrest of Hambali will help authorities in their fight against terrorism in Asia and slow the flow of terrorist funds in the region, Deputy U.S. Secretary of State Richard Armitage said Friday.

"Clearly Hambali will shed light over time on planning and activities in Southeast Asia particularly," Armitage told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Armitage said Hambali's capture would also help slow up the flow of terrorist funds in Asia.

"It makes them have to come up with workarounds to their normal facility for passing money and that's a good thing because it possibly could show up more readily to us," he said.

Armitage was cautious in giving details surrounding Hambali's capture because it could be a chance "to wrap up more of his comrades and we'd love the opportunity to do so."

The Nation newspaper in Thailand reported Hambali was arrested early this week in the central Thai town of Ayutthaya on suspicion of plotting to stage a terrorist attack during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders summit in October.

Armitage said it had been "a pretty good week for the antiterrorist coalition," but cautioned that the war against terrorism would be long and hard.

"This is not a war that will be over in the short term. It's going to be long, it's going to be continuously neuralgic for some time and we have to fight it on all fronts," he said.

Armitage was in Australia this week for talks on terrorism and regional security with Prime Minister John Howard and to attend a meeting of a private group called the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue, organized by Australian and U.S. business people.