FOR the last 13 years, al-Qaeda’s most powerful leader in South-East Asia, Indonesian Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, has been held in Guantanamo Bay prison, out of public sight but still very much in the minds of militants and security agencies across the region.
Such is the potent reputation of Hambali, the man known as the Osama bin Laden of South-East Asia, alleged mastermind of Bali’s devastating 2002 bombings that killed 202, Indonesia’s Christmas Eve multi-city church bombings of 2000, and Jakarta Marriott Hotel car bombing of 2003.