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Hambali's friends and family know little of why he decided to go to Afghanistan and what he did there. Hambali himself was much less reserved about his exploits during a three-year stint as a mujahedin: while preaching in Malaysia in the 1990s he often referred to the time he spent fighting the Soviets, boasting to his congregation of his meetings with Osama bin Laden, providing the exact dates and places. As for so many other Islamic radicals of his generation, Afghanistan was the crucible that transformed Hambali into a fiery advocate of Osama's Wahhabi brand of Islam that espouses armed struggle as the only way to bring back the pure, unsullied faith originally practiced by the Prophet Muhammad. When he returned to Malaysia in the late 1980s, says fellow preacher and alleged terrorist Abubakar Ba'asyir, Hambali brought with him a burning belief in a new way of seeing Islam: the way of holy war. "Hambali, just like me, encouraged people to carry out jihad, which at that time was not known in Malaysia."

Abubakar, who now lives and teaches in the central Java town of Solo, is also wanted by police in Malaysia and Singapore—they believe he and Hambali were joint founders of JI, and the brains behind the foiled plan to explode bombs outside the U.S. embassy and other diplomatic and commercial sites in Singapore. Abubakar was questioned and released by Indonesian police in February, and flatly rejects those allegations. But he does boast that he and Hambali were active recruiters and fund-raisers for the Muslim militia battling Christians in Indonesia's Maluku Islands, where communal violence has killed more than 5,000 in the past four years. "He was very active in collecting money," says the white-bearded 64-year-old Abubakar of his friend. "He also brought together people who wanted to perform jihad in Ambon," the city that has been Maluku's chief battleground.

Police in Malaysia and Singapore allege that both men were also pursuing a larger aim: the establishment of a unified Islamic state in Southeast Asia that would be governed by strict Islamic law. "Daulah Islamiah Raya" would include all of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Sultanate of Brunei and parts of the southernmost areas of the Philippines, Thailand and even Cambodia. The dream of an Islamic super-state has historically been a largely Indonesian preoccupation, arising in part out of a diaspora of fundamentalist Muslims like Hambali and Abubakar who fled repression under the Suharto regime and resettled all over Southeast Asia. "Being outside Indonesia, they realize that they may be left out if an Islamic state of Indonesia is ever established. That's why they decided to strive for a Daulah Islamiah instead," says Al Chaidar, a long-time member of the movement, who is himself living in exile in Thailand.

When he arrived in Sungei Manggis in 1991, Hambali had more practical matters on his mind. Virtually penniless and owning little more than the plastic bag of clothes he arrived with, for several years Hambali struggled just to feed himself and his family. Mohammed, his onetime landlord, and other villagers say he initially tried to make a living by hawking Arabic and Indonesian patent medicines. Later he turned to selling kebabs from a pushcart outside the main mosque in nearby Banting town. But even when Hambali was struggling just to earn enough for his family to eat, he retained a tranquil confidence that set him apart. "People liked him very much. They trusted him implicitly," says Mohammed. It was a quality that Hambali would deploy with great effect in later years to bind disciples to his vision of jihad.

In 1994, the quiet preacher's fortunes seemed to turn. He began to receive frequent "Middle Eastern" type visitors at his small house, Mohammed recalls: "Some looked Arab and others white." They usually arrived at night and departed the next morning. "It was difficult to engage them in a conversation but they were all polite." And generous. By 1994, Hambali was driving a new red hatchback and carrying several mobile phones. Flush with newfound cash, Hambali now set up as a contractor and began to do small construction jobs, hiring the men to whom he had once peddled patent medicines. In March 1995, Mohammed says, Hambali threw his first grand feast for several hundred guests to mark the Muslim holiday of Idul Adha. This would become an annual event: guests, mostly Indonesians, would gather in the compound outside Hambali's house, pray and slaughter goats which they then roasted. That same year, Hambali began to return home to Indonesia for the Idul Fitri celebration, the most important event on the Islamic calendar.

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