2003 Marriott Hotel Bombing - Al-Qaeda Connection

Al-Qaeda Connection

Stuart A. Levey, the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in the United States, believes that the 2002 Bali bombing, and the Marriott Hotel bombing were financed by smuggling $30,000 in cash for each attack from al-Qaeda to allied terrorists in Asia. By contrast, the 9/11 Commission estimated the 11 September 2001 attacks cost between $400,000 and $500,000 over two years—at least some of which was deposited in foreign accounts and accessed by the plotters in the USA.

The Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney said:

Hambali went to the training camps in Afghanistan that they ran back in the '90s, subsequently received funding from al Qaeda, went back then to Indonesia, and was behind some of the major attacks there. So you've got this sort of home-grown, but nonetheless affiliated, extremist operation going now in Indonesia. You'll find the same thing if you go to Morocco, where they had the attack in Casablanca; in Turkey, Istanbul, and so forth.

It was the simultaneous presence at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan by militants from across South East Asia that facilitated many of the personal relationships that exist between JI and members of other violent Islamist groups. These include the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a secessionist movement fighting for a Muslim homeland in the southern Philippines, as well as several other Indonesian, Malaysian and Thai groups. The weight of evidence suggests that although some JI personnel might be inspired by the larger global mystique of figures such as Osama bin Laden, the South East Asian group remains operationally and organisationally distinct.