The al-Qaeda mastermind of bombings in Bali and other parts of Southeast Asia was capturered earlier this week, the White House said Thursday afternoon.

Riduan Isamuddin, 36, also known as Hambali, is in U.S. custody in an undisclosed location, according to a spokeswoman for the CIA. The agency would not reveal where he was captured...

A senior administration official said Hambali's group, Jemaah Islamiya, was linked to last year's Bali bombing and a series of deadly church bombings in the Philippines. The Bali bombing last October at two nightclubs killed 202 people, mostly Western vacationers.

He is also a leading suspect in the J.W. Marriott bombing in Jakarta and a close associate of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind who was captured earlier this year.

Hambali is also connected the the Sept. 11 plot, although it's unclear how much of a direct role he played. Authorities say Hambali ordered one of his deputies to host meetings between two eventual Sept. 11 hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, and another high-ranking al-Qaeda figure, at his apartment in Malaysia in January 2000...

Hambali is thought to be the operations director for Jemaah Islamiya, which has a stated goal of creating a single Islamic state encompassing Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the southern Philippines.