Operative details al Qaeda's Asian expansion

Omar al-Faruq was taken into custody by Indonesian authorities in June.

MANILA, Philippines (CNN) -- A key al Qaeda operative has provided information that leads U.S. officials to believe that southeast Asia now has the highest concentration of al Qaeda members outside of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Information provided by Omar al-Faruq, a Kuwaiti citizen, also contributed to the U.S. government raising its terror threat level last week, authorities said.

Al-Faruq, 31, was arrested June 5 by authorities in Indonesia, where he allegedly had been working to unite terrorist groups from several countries in southeast Asia. He was sent to the U.S.-held Bagram air base in Afghanistan, where the CIA has been questioning him.

Authorities say al-Faruq was sent to southeast Asia in 1995 by senior al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah, who is also now in U.S. custody.

Al-Faruq used a fake passport to enter the Philippines, where he joined the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the country's largest Muslim separatist group. Regional intelligence officials say al Qaeda established a terrorist training camp at Camp Abubakar, the group's sprawling complex.

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In the late 1990s, al-Faruq slipped into Indonesia, where he began recruiting terrorists for al Qaeda.

When Indonesian authorities took him into custody in June, al-Faruq was -- according to one intelligence report -- al Qaeda's senior representative in southeast Asia.

Authorities say al-Faruq worked closely with Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, who is wanted by authorities in Malaysia and Singapore. Ba'asyir lives freely in Indonesia, where he continues to campaign for an Islamic state. He denies any link to al Qaeda.

Intelligence sources in southeast Asia said Ba'asyir and al-Faruq united at least nine homegrown militant groups in Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar.

The same sources said the two men -- helped by at least three other al Qaeda operatives in the region -- set off simultaneous bombing attacks in the Philippines and Indonesia in December 2000, plotted to assassinate Indonesia's President Megawati Sukarnoputri, and planned suicide bomb attacks against U.S. and Western interests in the region.

That threat is still in place today, al-Faruq told the CIA.

Al Qaeda placed increasing importance on its operations in southeast Asia, regional intelligence officials said. In 2000, two of al Qaeda's top leaders -- Ayman al-Zawahiri and Mohammed Atef -- visited al Faruq and toured Indonesia.

An intelligence document obtained by CNN indicates that visit was part of a larger plan: because of its alliance with armed groups and lax law enforcement, al Qaeda wanted to move its base of operations from Afghanistan to southeast Asia.