Westerners trained at al-Qaida camps in Indonesia, official say

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Seven men who appeared to be light-skinned foreigners trained at Indonesian terrorist camps organized by the al-Qaida network, an intelligence official said Friday.

Al-Qaida provided money, weapons and explosives training for volunteers at jungle camps Authorities believe at least 50 Indonesians attended the camps between March and November 2001 along with the seven men who appear to be from Western countries, Yara said.

"Al-Qaida funded and provided weapons for these camps," Yara told The Associated Press.

Each camp was believed to have two or three trainers, including one who was the son-in-law of Abdullah Sunkar, the alleged founder of Jemaah Islamiyah.

Jemaah Islamiyah, which authorities have linked to al-Qaida, is allegedly responsible for the Oct. 12 bombings at nightclubs packed with foreign tourists on the island of Bali, killing 192 people.

Yara said authorities do not know the nationalities of the seven apparent foreigners, who trained at one of the at least 10 jungle camps.

He denied telling the Australian newspaper, The Age, that he had identified one of the men as Jack Thomas, a cab driver from Australia.

Thomas, a 29-year-old Muslim convert from Melbourne, was arrested on Jan. 4 in Pakistan. He is being held on suspicion of terrorism links.

In December 2001, Indonesia's Intelligence Chief Lt. Gen. Abdullah Hendropriyono claimed that al-Qaida had operated training camps in Sulawesi, but he quickly retracted the claim after the police and the military denied the existence of such camps.

Last month, police in South Sulawesi said they had discovered three abandoned training camps where the alleged perpetrators of a deadly bombing of a McDonald's restaurant in December in Makassar, the provincial capital, trained for the attack.