BANGKOK, 17 August 2003 — Hambali, a top Al-Qaeda militant suspected of masterminding a series of bombings in Southeast Asia, was plotting more attacks when he was arrested in Thailand this week, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said yesterday.

Thaksin told reporters Hambali, believed to be the only Southeast Asian to sit on Al-Qaeda’s military committee, may have been planning an attack on an October Asia-Pacific summit that US President George W. Bush is due to attend in Bangkok.

“He came here to work and was using Thailand as a base for committing acts of terror. Investigations reveal some connection to APEC, but we still have to investigate further,” Thaksin said, referring to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

All the militants in Thailand connected to Hambali, said by intelligence agencies to be operations chief of the Southeast Asian militant group Jemaah Islamiah (JI), had been arrested, he said. The Indonesian Muslim preacher was the last of them to be rounded up, Thaksin said, but declined to say how many others had been arrested or to identify them.

A Thai security source said two other JI members were arrested along with Hambali and his Malaysian wife in the ancient Thai capital of Ayutthaya and police had seized a laptop computer containing information on the group’s network.

Thai officials say Hambali was handed over to the United States and flown out of Thailand on Wednesday. There has been no word on where he was taken and Thaksin said he did not know. “I wouldn’t tell you if I knew,” he said.

A Thai security source said a recently captured senior Jemaah Islamiah operative called Zubair led police to Hambali. He said Zubair gave interrogators the information needed to track Hambali.