By Ahmad Pathoni

JAKARTA, March 26 (Reuters) - A recent jailbreak by a member of Jemaah Islamiah in Singapore has revived fears the Islamic militant group could plot attacks against Western interests in the region again.

While several key strategists and bomb experts in Jemaah Islamiah, or JI, have been captured or killed, some analysts said it and its splinter groups still have the capacity to launch attacks.

Over a period of four years JI carried out deadly bombings of bars and restaurants in Bali, and on the Australian embassy and JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta.

While it has not pulled off a major attack since 2005, it is training militant Islamic groups in the Philippines, and clerics such as Abu Bakar Bashir are preaching anti-Western views in an attempt to radicalise Indonesian Muslims, security analysts said.

"Their military capacity has been weakened by a series of arrests and seizure of explosives, but it doesn't take many people to pull off an attack," said Noor Huda Ismail of Jakarta-based Securindo Global Consulting, adding that the Marriott bombing in 2003 involved only five people.

"These die-hard militants are not necessarily operating under JI. But they share an ideology, that the West is their enemy. They are technologically savvy. They undergo self-radicalisation through the Internet."

JI also planned attacks on Western targets in Singapore, while Mas Selamat bin Kastari, the JI member who escaped from a Singapore prison in February, was allegedly behind a plot to hijack a plane and crash it into the city-state's Changi Airport.

Singapore is arguably the most Westernised country in Southeast Asia, has close ties to the United States, and has a majority non-Muslim population.

"(JI) is still dangerous. Those who are still on the run are actively recruiting new people, including technical students in Indonesian universities," said Al Chaidar, a former radical Muslim activist who studied Islamic militancy and now teaches international politics at Aceh's Malikussaleh University.

"JI is trying to regroup and consolidate so that they can carry out major attacks again. They have volunteers to carry out suicide bombing but they don't have bombs."

COMMUNAL VIOLENCE

Sidney Jones, a Jakarta-based analyst with the International Crisis Group, said JI was more likely to attack Indonesian police in revenge for arrests, or Christians, rather than Western targets.

"If there was to be an outbreak of communal violence you'd find them, for example in those parts of the archipelago where there are religious conflicts" such as Poso or Ambon, which have suffered from Muslim-Christian conflicts, she said.

After JI bombed two bars on the resort island of Bali in 2002, killing more than 200 foreigners and Indonesians, Indonesia deployed a special unit called Detachment 88 to work with Western security agencies in tracking down JI's leaders.

Security forces have had some success. Abu Dujana, self-confessed leader of JI's military wing, was caught last year, while Riduan Isamuddin, also known as Hambali and considered the mastermind behind the 2002 Bali bombs, is now being held in Guantanamo Bay.

Three men known as the Bali bombers for their role in the attack, were captured and are now on death row in Indonesia.

Their death sentences are considered politically sensitive -- the Bali bombers have followers and sympathisers on the overwhelmingly Muslim island of Java, and one of them continues to distribute his sermons to supporters from prison, security analysts said.

Indonesia has also proved successful with its "de-radicalisation programme" in which some JI members have been persuaded to recant and now preach non-violence to other JI supporters.

But analysts said some of JI's more dangerous members remain at large, including strategist Noordin Mohammad Top and Umar Patek, who is thought to be in the Philippines training militants.

And while Singapore police believe Kastari is still in the city-state, others fear he has already fled to Indonesia where he could hook up with other JI members.

"Kastari is a significant figure in the JI organisation," said Al Chaidar.

"The truth is Singapore is the number one terrorist target in the region. It has never ceased being a terrorist prey. For them Singapore is a big prize, just like America before 9/11."

The Philippine military exhumed a corpse in February, saying it was the body of Dulmatin, a JI member who specialised in making bombs and who was wanted for his role in the Bali bombings.

The Philippines has not yet released the result of forensic DNA tests, but some analysts doubt the body is Dulmatin's, and say it is too early to claim JI has been crushed.

"Don't write JI off. You can't say that just because there hasn't been an attack since 2005 therefore the problem is over," said ICG's Jones. (Additional reporting by Melanie Lee in Singapore; Writing by Sara Webb; Editing by Ed Davies and Jerry Norton)

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