A complicated web of 100 over marriages involving family members of key Jemaah Islamiah leaders, members and their operatives has been uncovered by security agencies across the region. Regional intelligence agencies said while they were aware that such arranged marriages had made the terrorist group into one large extended terrorist family, the extent of the family ties was something they had not expected.
| I think we've already noticed it here... |
"The figure is just the tip of the iceberg. We believe the number of marriages involved is certainly much higher judging from the information we have continued to gather," an official of the Indonesian Anti-Terrorism Unit told The Star. The official said the figures were compiled following exhaustive investigations into the activities of family members, especially spouses, in the operations of JI, said to be the regional arm of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda movement. This is the first time that the Indonesian Anti-Terrorism Unit has revealed the number of marriages involving JI members although such family ties have been reported by the media previously.
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An official said that from the investigations, these marriages had been arranged to forge bonds between Malaysian and Indonesian JI members, but agencies wanted to know how many of the spouses were full-fledged JI members. The security agencies, which have focused part of their investigations on this angle, said these marriages were made to keep the JI organisation a close-knit one from every aspect. "While family relations among JI members have been published by the media, we did not know the huge number involved. The ongoing interrogation process includes finding out from family members of arrested JI suspects how much they know of the activities carried out by their spouses or other relatives. We want to know whether they were involved in the funding aspect, for example, and whether they were involved in the propaganda work such as teaching militancy in schools," an Indonesian intelligence official said. |