JAKARTA - MAS Selamat Kastari learnt how to escape and survive in tough conditions as part of his rigorous regimen in one of Afghanistan's notorious terrorist camps, terrorism experts say.

'It's not a surprise that he has yet to be caught by the Singapore authorities,' said former Jemaah Islamiah (JI) leader turned anti-terror activist Nasir Abas.

Security analyst Ken Conboy agreed. Mas Selamat, who led JI's Singapore branch, would be able to survive because of his experience in enduring the cold weather in Afghanistan, he said.

'They had to make do with whatever they had then,' said Mr Conboy, who has written a book about JI.

He said that the Indonesian police officers who raided JI hideouts had found instruction manuals that included a section on escape and evading arrest.

'Some of the documents seized by police also contained instructions for the recruits to watch movies like The Jackal and Saving Private Ryan, for them to draw lessons from,' he said.

Mr Nasir told The Sunday Times that, based on Mas Selamat's experience in Afghanistan and information from a training manual believed to have been taken from the United States army, a training camp was set up by JI in Mindanao, in southern Philippines, in 1997.

Known as Camp Hudaibiyah, its programme was not as tough as the ones in Afghanistan, but it did include a small section on 'escape and evasion'.

'The first principle that we taught them was not to be captured by the enemy,' said Mr Nasir, who was one of the instructors at the camp.

'It was a shame to be captured. But if you were caught, you should find opportunities to escape.'

Recruits were put through a simulation exercise. They were divided into two armed groups which would fight each other for weeks.

One group would take a member of the other group hostage. He then had to use his skills to escape.

'We went through the exercise several times until we were confident that the recruits had mastered the skills,' said Mr Nasir.

Recruits were also taught to survive in the dense jungles of the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. They learnt to extract water from natural sources as well as from certain plants.

Mr Nasir said that recruits were trained to eat plant shoots, leaves and small animals such as wild fowl and freshwater fish.