Osama bin Laden's southeast Asian network, built up over the past decade, is largely intact and possibly more dangerous than before, the New York Times reported in its online edition today quoting intelligence officials.
Citing officials in several countries in the region, the newspaper reported the area's al-Qaeda network may not only be more deadly and more virulently anti-American than it was a year ago, but also harder to detect.
Al-Qaeda's men have become less likely to gather in camps, many of which have been bombed or closed, and the most important leaders of al-Qaeda's Southeast Asian network are at large, ready to activate sleeper cells, according to these officials, the newspaper said.
As a result, Asian and Western officials in the region are virtually unanimous in expressing fears that the bombing in Bali on October 12th should be seen as a warning to the United States and its allies, the newspaper reported.
Officials acknowledge that their picture of the al-Qaeda operation is incomplete, but that it is as much what they don't know than what they do that alarms them, the newspaper said.
Hundreds of men in southeast Asia have trained at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and the Philippines, but who and where they are is unknown, according to an American intelligence official, the newspaper said.
While many of the group's training camps have been destroyed, al-Qaeda operatives only need a few safe houses to teach how to assemble weapons, the newspaper said, quoting a Philippine intelligence official.