What al-Faruq may not have known was that in early 2002, U.S. and regional intelligence officials had picked up his signal. On Feb. 25, according to intelligence reports, the CIA informed regional counterparts that three Indonesian-based Islamic militants had established a training school for terrorists on the island of Borneo. Indonesian investigators discovered that four MMI operatives, including al-Faruq, had held training exercises at the same location. While al-Faruq initially managed to stay beyond the reach of authorities, some of his closest associates ran out of luck. In March Dwikarna was arrested in Manila after airport security guards discovered plastic explosives and detonation cables in his suitcase; the next month U.S. and Pakistani forces seized Abu Zubaydah in Faisalabad, Pakistan. A regional intelligence brief says on April 27 the CIA reported that the same cell-phone number, 081-2957-6852, had been programmed into the handsets of both Dwikarna and Abu Zubaydah. The number was al-Faruq's.

Investigators soon realized al-Faruq was a man with connections. An al-Qaeda prisoner at America's Camp X Ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, also had al-Faruq's number. The same intelligence report says the CIA traced a number dialed by Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, an Indonesian JI militant arrested for suspected involvement in last December's Singapore bomb plot, back to al-Faruq. In May, the report continues, the CIA found that Ibin al-Khattab, the late Chechen commander with ties to al-Qaeda, had once placed a call to al-Faruq on his cell phone. On May 2, shortly after discovering that al-Faruq had acquired a fake Indonesian passport, the Indonesian government authorized agents to arrest him. Intelligence reports say that on May 23, U.S. interrogators questioning Abu Zubaydah showed him a picture of al-Faruq. Abu Zubaydah quickly identified his old friend as "al-Faruq al Kuwait." He then told his inquisitors the tangled tale of al-Faruq's quest to turn Southeast Asia into an al-Qaeda stronghold. Two weeks later, authorities swooped in on al-Faruq at a mosque in Bogor. Says Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the country's chief security minister: "It was quite rapid work."

Though al-Faruq's odyssey has ended, his story finally divulged, the reasons he knowingly risked so much to pursue a life of terrorism remain a mystery perhaps even to those who knew him best. Back in Cijeruk, now left to raise their children alone, al-Faruq's wife Mira insists that she knows nothing about her husband's past — even though, in his testimony to the CIA, intelligence officials say, al-Faruq alludes to Mira's participation in his terrorist plots. She claims al-Faruq never even told her he was Kuwaiti. But she does recall a piece of advice he once gave her. "When we got married, he made me promise that if he disappeared one day, I would not go looking for him," she says. "So I kept my commitment and didn't search."

REPORTED BY JASON TEDJASUKMANA/JAKARTA, SIMON ELEGANT AND ZAMIRA LOEBIS/CIJERUK, NELLY SINDAYEN/MANILA AND ELAINE SHANNON AND DOUGLAS WALLER/WASHINGTON

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