Terror Link to Indonesia's Mystery Man?

Oct. 24 -- Barely two years ago, he was a largely unknown figure, one of thousands of Islamic clerics in the vast Indonesian archipelago whose popularity, for the most part, do not extend beyond their local congregations.

Today, Abu Bakar Bashir has become a key figure in the rapidly changing international war on terror, a man whose every move is followed by governments, intelligence agencies and news organizations around the world.

By some accounts, he could be one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants in Asia, and he is wanted for questioning in the wake of a bombing earlier this month on the island of Bali that killed scores of Western tourists. It was the deadliest terrorist attack since Sept. 11, 2001, in the United States.

An anti-American Islamic leader with a fair share of political clout in a country that is home to the world's largest Muslim population, Bashir is believed to head Jemaah Islamiyah, a shadowy Islamic group with alleged ties to bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

"Jemaah Islamiyah is al Qaeda-Southeast Asia," says Rohan Gunaratna, a former investigator at the U.N. Terrorism Prevention Branch, and author of Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror. "Originally an Indonesian group, it grew into a regional organization in the 1990s and its mission is to create a caliphate comprising Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and other parts of Southeast Asia."

While the governments of Indonesia and Malaysia have been alert to the threat posed by Bashir for some time, the reedy cleric with a wispy white beard first caught the attention of international media last December, when he was linked to an alleged plot to blow up the U.S. Embassy and other Western targets in Singapore.

It was an allegation over which Bashir unsuccessfully sued the government of Singapore earlier this year.

Bloodbath in Bali

But it was the deadly Oct. 12 bombing of a crowded nightclub in Bali that swung the international spotlight on the 65-year-old Indonesian cleric of Yemeni descent who has based his operations in the central Javanese town of Solo.

Although Indonesian authorities have said there is no proof Jemaah Islamiyah was responsible for the bombing, which killed more than 180 people, Indonesian police have admitted the attack bore the stamp of the militant group.

Meanwhile, the United States and Australia — a country that lost more than 90 of its citizens in the Bali attack — have been pressing to have Jemaah Islamiyah declared a terrorist group by the United Nations.