Terrorist Funds - Transferring Money,

Terrorist Funds - Transferring Money, Funding Death
Indonesian Police capture couriers of funds for terrorism.


It is suspected that the Jakarta hotel bombs involved foreign donors since this act of terrorism was meticulously planned and required a huge amount of money.

The 2002 and 2003 bombings were funded by foreign money through Hambali alias Riduan Isamuddin. The information on this foreign money comes from the police report regarding the investigation of Ali Ghufron alias Mukhlas and Rusman Gunawan—Hambali’s younger brother. Funds from Al Qaeda also came up in the confession made by Mohd. Faruk bin Amin alias Zubair, a Malaysian citizen captured in Thailand and now detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Hambali proposed the plan to detonate bombs in Bali and at the Marriott to Khalid Syah Muhammad, a Pakistani, who is said to be the right-hand man of Osama bin Laden. Hambali got US$30,000 plus 200,000 Thai baht. For the 2003 Marriott bombing, Hambali
proposed US$50,000. The money from Pakistan first stopped over in Bangkok.

In the 2003 Marriott bombing, Hambali through Rusman contacted Ammar al-Baluchi in Pakistan to hand over US$50,000 to Zubair in Thailand. Zubair took the money through the Al-Baluchi network in Bangkok. From Bangkok the money was taken in cash to Indonesia via Malaysia. The 2003 Marriott bombing only used US$15,000 out of the total US$50,000. The remainder was used for the bombing of the Australian embassy in 2004.

The terrorist money supplies dwindled following Hambali’s capture in Thailand or 10 days after the 2003 Marriott bombing. This terrorist network struggled to obtain money at home by, for example, robbery. Part of the money for the 2005 Bali bombs was gained from robbing a jewelry store in Serang, Banten.

Money for the bombs at Kuta and Jimbaran, Bali, were amounts of about US$2,000, while at least US$15,000 was used for the Marriott and Ritz-Carlton bombs. The money was used for a number of rooms at the five-star hotel, to hire cars, to buy explosives, and to lease houses at Jatibening, Bekasi and at Mampang, South Jakarta, where the bombs were assembled and stored.
Excerpts from Tempo Magazine