Pentagon - Southeast Asia al-Qaida bigger than thought

WASHINGTON -- The size and sophistication of an al-Qaida affiliate group in southeast Asia was far greater than the Pentagon expected, a defense official said Tuesday.

The group, Jemaah Islamiyah, is an Islamic extremist network allied by common cause with al-Qaida to oppose U.S. interests, the official said. It has ties in Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines, and had sent some of its fighters to be trained in Afghanistan.

"It's a lot larger or more robust than we thought," the official said, briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity.

A crackdown in December and January by several governments in the region exposed a plot by Jemaah Islamiyah to attack U.S. naval and other facilities in Singapore. Some information on the plot was gleaned from evidence discovered by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

People in Malaysia and the Philippines were also detained in connection with the plot. Officials in those countries said they found large caches of explosives.

But there's no sign that al-Qaida's surviving senior leadership is headed to that part of the world -- or any other, for the moment, the official said.

Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network has "lost its center of gravity," and its safe haven in Afghanistan, the official said, after the U.S. military helped Afghan fighters remove its Taliban protectors from power.

The official said the al-Qaida leaders haven't gone to Somalia -- regarded as one potential new home -- as once feared. Officials still don't have a fix on Osama bin Laden, he said.

He said there's evidence the group may begin to function in a decentralized manner, with local "franchises" conducting their own terrorist attacks, rather than waiting for direction and funding from Afghanistan.