ABSTRACT
Singapore's security service named an Indonesian cleric, schoolmaster, and supporter of Osama bin Laden named Abu Bakar Bashir as the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah. Bashir admitted that he had taught some of the detainees, but denied any personal involvement in terrorism. He said that the United States was really the terrorist nation. Jemaah Islamiyah had obtained several tons of nitrate fertilizer with which to make truck bombs of explosive power that could have dwarfed the Oklahoma City blast. The terrorists had planned to accumulate more than twenty tons of the chemical, which could have laid waste to a good portion of Singapore had they succeeded. Singapore appeared to be a prosperous country. Unlike the situation in Pakistan or in certain Middle Eastern states, there were no large numbers of unemployed, frustrated young men floating around, available to be recruited into terrorist groups.
