Johor police station attack: Ulu Tiram a JI playground

KUALA LUMPUR - Ulu Tiram, some 20km from Johor Bahru, has long been a familiar place for Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) leaders and fighters.

The movement’s Indonesian founder Abu Bakar Bashir and his compatriot Abdullah Sungkar even established a madrasah – Luqmanul Hakim – in Ulu Tiram, according to various reports.

Abdullah died in 1993 while Abu Bakar was jailed for 2½ years in 2005 over the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people. He was freed after 15 months.

In 2011, he was jailed for 15 years for supporting a jihadi training camp. He was released in January 2021.

JI operative Noordin Mohammad Top, once known as Asia’s most wanted terrorist, attended the madrasah, along with another militant, Mukhlas, who was also part of the 2002 Bali bombings.

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Noordin, 41, was killed by Indonesian security forces on Sept 17, 2009, while Mukhlas was executed by the Indonesian authorities in 2008 after he was found guilty for his part in the Bali bombings.

He, too, had started a madrasah in Indonesia and brought in religious teachers from Indonesia to Ulu Tiram.

The Ulu Tiram madrasah was shut down in the early 2000s.

Indonesian terrorist Hambali reportedly met his wife Noralwizah Lee Abdullah, also known as Lee Yin Len, at the same madrasah.

Hambali, and his two alleged Malaysian partners, Mohamed Farik Amin and Mohamed Nazir Lep, are still being held in the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

They are classified as “high-value detainees” and of “high-risk threat to the United States and its allies”.

Hambali, who is also known as Encep Nurjaman and Riduan Isamuddin, was a permanent resident in Malaysia.

He was said to be a key Al-Qaeda leader in South-east Asia, and the two Malaysians were personally recruited by him for a suicide attack in the US, which was later aborted.

The charges against the trio centre on two terrorist attacks in Indonesia, where US citizens were among the casualties. THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK