SINGAPORE - Singapore issued an official report yesterday on the Southeast Asian militant group Jemaah Islamiah (JI) after investigating 31 suspected members rounded up for allegedly plotting attacks on US and other targets in the city-state.

In the "White Paper," the ministry gave more details of the alleged plans by the JI to blow up US and local targets, including bringing in foreign suicide bombers of Arab origin to carry out the attacks.

It also detailed the organisation's presence in Southeast Asia, including its links with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in the southern Philippines, the Kumpulan Militan Malaysia and the Majlis Mujahidin Indonesia.

It said that after the second batch of local JI suspects was arrested in August, "the JI network in Singapore has been severely disrupted" but bomb attacks in Bali and the Philippines showed the threat was "far from over".

Malaysian wanted

"There is a need for the regional security and intelligence services to continue to work closely to locate and arrest those other key JI leaders on the run including Hambali and Malaysian JI member Azahari Husin," it said.

Hambali, also known as Riduan Isamudin, has been named as the JI's military chief.

Singapore said the 31 detained men "pose an active threat to Singapore's security and their detention is necessary to neutralise their threat and to allow investigations to continue to ferret out all others in the JI and MILF networks in Singapore."

It said that even if the US succeeds in dismantling al-Qaeda, radical Muslim groups in the region "will continue to pursue al-Qaeda's agenda of global jihad."

"With their radical agenda and their enhanced skills acquired from al-Qaeda, these groups, if left unchecked, will pose a grave threat the security of Southeast Asia for a long time to come." - AFP