BI seals entry points for al-Qaeda suspects

Suspected leaders of the al-Qaeda terrorist network who operate cells in Southeast Asia were placed yesterday in the Bureau of Immigration (BI)’s blacklist to prevent them from entering the country.

Five of the suspects are Ruiduan Isamuddin, Yazid Sufaat Moussaqui and Abu Bakar Bashir, all Indonesians; and Wall Khan Amin Shah, an Afghan.

Four are jailed in the country: Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi and Faz bin Abu Bakar Rafana, both Indonesians; Ramzi Yousef, a Kuwaiti; and Abdul Murad, a Pakistani.

Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo said yesterday the six who remain at large are the object of a manhunt by police forces worldwide.

"They were placed both in the blacklist and watchlist to ensure that they won’t be able to come here if they are abroad or they will be arrested if they are already in the Philippines," she said.

Domingo said investigations have confirmed the involvement of the suspects in terror plots hatched by al-Qaeda cells in Southeast Asia, including the attack on the American warship USS Cole in Yemen and the Dec. 30, 2000 Rizal Day bombings in Metro Manila.

Quoting intelligence reports, Domingo said Murad and Shah were tagged as the brains of "Bojinka," the failed 1995 plot to bomb the offices of several Western airlines.

Yousef and Murad were later arrested and convicted in the United States for the first bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City in 1993, she added.

Isamuddin, alias Hambali, is said to be al-Qaeda’s point man in Southeast Asia, and the right-hand man of the leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, which planned the Rizal Day bombings that killed 23 people in Metro Manila.

Al Ghozi, a self-confessed terrorist who was arrested in Quiapo, Manila last month, had admitted to police investigators that Isamuddin was in Manila before the Rizal Day bombings to help plan the attacks.

Intelligence officials said Isamuddin planned the attack on the USS Cole and the plot to bomb the US embassy and other American facilities in Singapore after last year’s Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the United States.

Bafana was said to have funded the Rizal Day bombings, while Bashir, a close associate of Hambali, was tagged as the leader of the plot to bomb the US embassy in Singapore.