A Muslim radical from Singapore allegedly helped finance a plot to assassinate Indonesian leader Megawati Sukarnoputri before she became president.
The financier, known only as "Al-Bukhari," was supposed to be one of three operatives assigned to carry out the mission, the Straits Times quoted an international terrorism expert, Rohan Gunaratna, as saying in an interview published Friday.
Megawati became Indonesia's vice president in October 1999 and president in July 2001. The first assassination attempt was supposed to have been carried out in 1999, and the second attempt within a year.
Gunaratna, the London-based author of a book on the al-Qaeda terrorist network, said a Malaysian known only as "Yasim" was supposed to buy the firearms while another person known as "Omar" developed the plan and was to be the triggerman, the Straits Times said. The plot was aborted after Yasin failed to get the right weapons, he said.
The second attempt failed after a Malaysian operative of the Jemaah Islamiyah group, linked by regional official to al-Qaeda, blew himself up when a bomb went off prematurely in a Jakarta shopping mall. Information about the alleged Singapore financier emerged from confessions made by an Al-Qaeda operative, Omar al-Faruq, who was arrested in Indonesia and is now under US custody, the Straits Times said. A special report last month in Time magazine said al-Faruq allegedly confessed to being the senior representative in Southeast Asia for terrorist supremo Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
A militant Indonesian Muslim leader on Tuesday filed a libel complaint against the US-based magazine over the report. The complaint was filed by Abubakar Ba'asyir, chairman of the Indonesian Mujahidin Council, an umbrella organization advocating Islamic law in the world's largest Muslim-dominated country.
Time reported in its September 23 issue that Ba'asyir was behind the bombing of a Jakarta mosque and linked to a recent plan to bomb US embassies in Jakarta and elsewhere in the region. Time, citing foreign intelligence reports, said al-Faruq had admitted he planned to kill Megawati in May 1999 when she was running for the presidency.