Re: (CNN) U.S. buildup at Turkey air base reported

>Does anyone have any information pertaining to how
>China has responded to the current situation?

I am interested in hearing about how China has responded as well. Below is a 
CNN piece from Jakarta and it seems the picture is getting uglier as more 
information comes in. 
 
Sabri 

++++++

Asia fears mounting militant Islamic network
September 14, 2001 Posted: 2:15 AM EDT (0615 GMT)

By Nick Easen and Maria Ressa
CNN 

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- A day after the horrific U.S. terrorist attack shocked 
the world, the American embassy closed in Jakarta, capital of the world's 
largest Muslim nation. 

As the U.S Government received information that extremist elements may be 
planning to target its interests, suspicions rose over the role of cross-border 
militant networks in Southeast Asia. 

"There is a clear indication and evidence of cross-border movement of people 
with these ill intentions", Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda, told 
CNN after the arrest of Indonesians and Malaysians following Wednesday's bomb 
threat at the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. 

He quickly dismissed speculation that Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, who has been 
singled out as the primary suspect of the U.S. attack, could be in Jakarta. 

However bin Laden's links with the region, and the many Islamic militant groups 
sympathetic towards his holy war or "jihad", have recently been bought into 
question. 

Terrorism expert Kenneth Katzman of the U.S. Library of Congress' Congressional 
Research Service highlights this in a recent report, saying cells of bin 
Laden's Al-Quida network have been identified or suspected in Malaysia and the 
Philippines. 

Recently concerns over bin Laden were also raised between President Megawati 
Sukarnoputri and US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, officials in The 
Australian newspaper werec quoted saying. 

The rise of an Asian Islamic network

Potential threats on the U.S. embassy in Jakarta, as well as unexplained bomb 
attacks, have been linked to extremist groups in Indonesia and the Philippines. 

Malaysia, Southeast Asia's second largest Muslim nation, has also suffered from 
foiled terrorist attacks and a recent bomb scare that led to the evacuation of 
the Petronas Towers, the world's tallest building. 

The first sign radical Islamic groups from Indonesia and the Philippines were 
working together came last year when the Philippine Army captured a rebel base 
in the south of the country and soldiers found two Indonesian passports. 

Two months later a bomb attack in Jakarta targeted, but narrowly missed 
killing, the Philippine ambassador to Indonesia. 

The Philippines link
  
Manila was first linked to international terrorism in 1995 when a bomb 
accidently exploded in an apartment and alerted police to the work of Ramzi 
Ahmed Yousef. 

He was convicted in 1996 of leading a conspiracy to bomb U.S. airliners in 
Asia. A year later he was also convicted of masterminding the World Trade 
Center bombing. 

Yousef has also been linked to bin Laden. 

Pakistani militant Abdul Hakim Murad was arrested in 1995 in Manila, in 
connection with a failed plot to assassinate Pope John Paul. 

Murad, a trained pilot, was extradited to the U.S. and convicted for a 1993 
attack on New York's World Trade Center. 

Documents and a laptop computer seized from the apartment where Murad was 
arrested contained many plans for attacking U.S. targets. 

One, codenamed Operation Bojinka, detailed plans to bomb 11 commercial 
airliners flying to the U.S. 

Militant Philippine Islamic group Abu Sayaf still demand the release of Murad 
and other militants convicted in the 1993 to plot to blow up the World Trade 
Center.