Kampung Tawakal

[updated 03062009 / 07:15] Malaysian Home Ministry Secretary-General Mahmood Adam said in an interview with The Associated Press that Malaysian authority knew about Mas Selamat Kastari location “from the moment he came to our country”. Police monitored his movements instead of arresting him immediately, because “the most important (thing) sometimes is not the particular target” but his network, adding that Mas Selamat alone is not as valuable as who is behind him. Police arrested two other suspects in Johor at around the same time as they nabbed Mas Selamat.

Kampung Tawakal, a tiny village with lesss than 100 citizens was the location used by Mas Selamat as save heaven after he swam from Singapore. The village was surrounded with oil palm, no sign board pointing to the village and unmarked on any map including Google Earth. Mas Selamat occupied the basement of the house which had been refurbished. He was believed to be renting the house from a man called Johar, who lived in the upper portion of the house with his wife and two young children. News sourced said, Johar was picked by police for further interrogation.

Eventhough the authorites managed to bring him back to detention centre but indirectly the whole incident shows the JI individual capability to survive beyond the state boundaries. Mas Selamat couldn't walk as normal person since he have injured his leg while he was in Indonesia yet if he can swam to Johor and manage to get the save shell then it's shows some flaws in intelligence collection. Intelligence officer's definitely do have some weak point since human beings cannot run away from mistakes but then the "human weakness" shall not be used as a total justification on why it takes so long for the authority to detain him. To avoid any future intelligence flaws, people need to be educated on counter terrorism and individual associated with terrorist activity. The people's intelligence network will be very usefull in future for the authorities to move fast to prevent any unnecessary circumstances. The bigger question is who was behind him, providing improvised flotation devices and the shell for save heaven in Kampung Tawakal? I believe, definitely the question will be in main agenda while interrogator question Johar and Mas Selamat. [Picture Source: The Star]