Omar al-Faruq's confessions, as detailed in the intelligence reports obtained by TIME, are much more than a single operative's warnings about possible plots against U.S. interests; they also provide a wealth of new and unpublished detail about the broad reach of al-Qaeda, its efforts to establish a base of operations outside Afghanistan and its success in pulling disparate militant groups and criminals into its lethal struggle against the West. At the same time, the documents illustrate the speed and determination with which U.S. intelligence agents and their foreign counterparts are working to untangle al-Qaeda's web of terror before the group strikes again.

Investigators are still verifying the credibility of the numerous leads into alleged al-Qaeda conspirators identified by al-Faruq. The intelligence documents, combined with TIME's investigation of al-Faruq's past, reveal that:

With al-Faruq acting as the point man, al-Qaeda received financial and operational assistance from Jemaah Islamiah (JI), a militant group that seeks to establish a pure Islamic state in Southeast Asia and is active in at least five countries — Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. The CIA report states that Abubakar Ba'asyir, 64, the cleric who is the alleged spiritual leader of JI, "authorized Faruq to use JI operatives and resources to conduct" the embassy bombings planned for last week; al-Faruq told the CIA that Ba'asyir dispatched a JI member named Abu al-Furkan to oversee a planned attack on the U.S. embassy in Malaysia. Al-Faruq said Ba'asyir was also behind a 1999 bombing of Jakarta's largest mosque and then blamed Christians for the act. Ba'asyir is wanted by Singapore for his alleged role as the mastermind of last December's foiled al-Qaeda plot to bomb U.S. targets there. Indonesian officials have so far declined to arrest him, saying they have no evidence linking him to terrorist activity.

In a separate regional intelligence report obtained by TIME, a high-ranking JI member now in custody told investigators that he hosted Zacarias Moussaoui — currently on trial in the U.S. for conspiring in the Sept. 11 attacks — during Moussaoui's swing through Malaysia in 2000. According to the source, Moussaoui went by the alias "John" and told the operative to buy four tons of fertilizer, presumably to build a bomb. Moussaoui left the country before giving any further instructions on what to do with the fertilizer.

Acting as an al-Qaeda operative, al-Faruq, the CIA report says, was "the mastermind behind all the Christmas 2000 bombings in Indonesia" — a wave of attacks on Christian churches — which killed 18 and injured more than 100. Earlier that year, al-Faruq "cased the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta to develop a plan to destroy the embassy with a large car bomb." He abandoned the plan when the U.S. hardened the building's security after a separate, credible threat in October 2000.

Increasing numbers of al-Qaeda operatives are moving into Southeast Asia. In May, according to a regional report, six "Middle Eastern terrorists" slipped into Indonesia. Counterterrorism officials say that, based on information provided by al-Faruq, the U.S. believes Southeast Asia now has the world's highest concentration of al-Qaeda operatives outside Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Al-Faruq told the CIA that some of al-Qaeda's operations in the region were funded through a branch of al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, an international charity based in Saudi Arabia, with offices in several Islamic countries. According to one regional intel memo, Faruq told his interrogators "money was laundered through the foundation by donors from the Middle East." Government sources tell TIME that U.S. investigators believe the charity is a "significant" source of funding for terrorist groups associated with al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia. Counterterrorism officials are also investigating possible links between al-Qaeda and top al-Haramain officials in Saudi Arabia.

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