Poisonous Minds

The

recent haul of suspected terrorists in several Southeast Asian countries shows that authorities region-wide are getting serious about combating terror. But the arrests also indicate that extremists are adopting new tactics for causing fresh havoc—perhaps in response to the pressure being put on them. On June 13 a Thai national was busted in Bangkok not with conventional explosives but with a potential dirty-bomb ingredient, cesium 137. This followed a seizure in Bangladesh on May 30 of a stash of radioactive uranium. Now, an unheralded arrest reveals that terrorists may be experimenting with yet another deadly agent: poison gas.

		LATEST COVER STORY The Secret Life of Kim Jong Il June 30, 2003 Issue Past Issues Harry Potter June 23, 2003 ----------------- Arthritis June 16, 2003 ----------------- Narco Korea June 9, 2003 ----------------- Nature vs. Nurture June 2, 2003 ----------------- Endless War? May 26, 2003 ----------------- The Democrats May 19, 2003 ----------------- Inside The Matrix May 12, 2003 ----------------- China: SARS Nation May 5, 2003 ----------------- Asian Heroes Apr. 28, 2003   ASIA  India: The Kidnapping Business  Laos: Licensed to Kill ARTS  Books: Searching for the 'Zone' NOTEBOOK  Terror: Poisonous Minds  China: Stop the Presses  Sports: The Real Deal  China: Stealing Beauty  Milestones  Verbatim TRAVEL  Goa: Sipping on Susegado CNN.com: Top Headlines

Malaysian police sources told TIME that on June 9 they arrested 36-year-old Alias Osman in a Kuala Lumpur suburb. Alias, they claim, was a member of the militant Islamic group Jemaah Islamiah (JI). Police say he led them to an oil-palm plantation where a cache of chemicals was buried, including an unspecified amount of sodium azide, a powder that can be used to make poison gas. "When mixed with water, acid or metal, it changes rapidly to a highly toxic gas," says a Malaysian-government chemist. "The gas can be fatal."

Most of the chemicals seized—potassium chloride, calcium chloride and aluminum powder—were similar to those used in the Bali bomb blasts. While only a few kilograms were discovered, there was enough to kill scores if a bomb were set off in a confined, crowded space, a regional intelligence official says. Police also recovered 14 detonators and a volatile high explosive called pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PENT, the prime component of the explosive in would-be bomber Richard Reid's sneakers. What worries terrorism experts is the possibility that a thwarted JI might turn to lone-wolf attacks like Reid's. "I don't think JI is capable of anything big right now," says Zachary Abuza, author of a forthcoming book on al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia, "but I'm worried that we could see the beginning of a number of small attacks."

Alias, police say, was once a student of Azahari bin Husin, the Malaysian professor who they believe was chiefly responsible for building the Bali bombs. Azahari, the author of a JI manual on bomb building, came within a whisker of being captured by Indonesian police in early June. According to regional intelligence sources familiar with the events, Azahari and another suspect in the Bali blasts were tracked down to a town in southern Sumatra. Alerted that something was wrong when police moved in to arrest a third JI suspect in the same town, Azahari and his companion fled, escaping moments before the police arrived. That narrow miss could have grave consequences. "Commanders like Azahari are the dangerous ones," says a senior regional intelligence official. "If we can get Azahari and maybe seven or eight others like him—cut off the head of the beast—then the ordinary foot soldiers won't be much danger any more."