Malaysian Al Qaeda Mohd Nazir bin Lep
This is the US Defence Department dossier on Mohd Nazir bin Lep, also known as Bashir bin Lap or Suicide Ali, detained at the US Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with others regarded as terrorists or members of Al Qaeda.
Nazir, 35, from Muar, Johore, is said to be a member of a suicide team that was to crash an airliner into the tallest building in California. The document says Nazir had wanted to make a suicide attack on the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur in 2002-03 with a truck bomb. He continually thought of attacking the embassy a hobby, he said and of killing the US ambassador. He had also previously targeted the British, Singapore, Australian and Russian embassies in KL.
He is also said to have been a conduit for funds for the militant bombing of the JW Mariott hotel and the Australian embassy in Jakarta.
The document says Nazir admitted receiving training at an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan on a variety of weapons and in military tactics and techniques of using pistols, cars, and motorcycles for kidnapping and assassination. He was in Afghanistan from June 2000 to October 2001, when he was asked to join a suicide mission.
Together with three other Malaysians, he met Osama bin Laden in Kabul and pledged allegiance to him. The others were named in the document as Afifi (Nik Abdul Rahman bin Mustapha), Masran bin Arshad, and Mohd Farik Amin (who was arrested in Cambodia and also sent to Guantanamo in 2006).
Nazir, who worked as a draftsman in architect firms in Kuala Lumpur, was said to have joined Jemaah Islamiyyah, the Southeast Asian militant organisation, after attending a talk at a mosque by its leader. He was said to be an active member of Pas.
The other members of Nazirs group were arrested by Malaysian Special Branch and held in detention under the Internal Security Act in a sweep of Jemaah Islamiyyah after the Sept 11 attack on the US,! the doc ument says. They were released in May 2008 and placed under restricted residence.
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