Singapore’s The Straits Times reported Friday (22/3/02) that Indonesia has sent a five-member intelligence team to Pakistan to search for Hambali, a 36-year-old Muslim cleric suspected of masterminding several bombings in Indonesia over the past year and plotting attacks in Southeast Asia on US and allied targets.

The Times quoted an unnamed Indonesian general as saying it was likely that Hambali, a veteran of the Soviet-Afghan war, had been offered refuge by an extremist group in Pakistan.

He said the Indonesian investigators would work with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency in their search for the suspected terrorist.

US sources recently told Laksamana.net there were indications that Hambali was in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan.

Indonesia has long said there was no sign of him in the archipelago, although it was unclear when or how he had actually fled the country.

The front-page report by Jonathan Weisman said the Pentagon wants to send troops to Indonesia, but was facing opposition from President Megawati Sukarnoputri’s government as it was “fearful of rising anger among its 200 million Muslims”.

President George W. Bush, in his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, said: "Some governments will be timid in the face of terror. And make no mistake about it, if they do not act, America will."

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