‘Bin Laden asked MILF to build camps for al-Qaeda’

Terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden had asked Moro Islamic Liberation Front leader Hashim Salamat in the early 1990s to set up training camps for al-Qaeda in the Philippines, US broadcaster Cable News Network (CNN), citing intelligence documents it had obtained, reported yesterday.

By 1998, the MILF had at least one training camp for al-Qaeda fighters inside the MILF’s sprawling base Camp Abubakar in Maguindanao, CNN ‘s "Asia Tonight" program said.

Citing Philippine intelligence documents, CNN said al-Qaeda’s ties with the MILF date back to the Soviet war in Afghanistan and that the MILF reportedly sent 1,000 fighters to help the Afghans fight the Soviets.

In 1995, Omar al-Faruq, a Kuwaiti, entered the Philippines using a false passport and visited the MILF and helped set up the training facility.

"In February 1999, a western intelligence agency monitored phone calls between Hashim Salamat ... and Osama bin Laden," the CNN report said. "The reason: after the 1998 East Africa bombings, it became harder for al-Qaeda operatives to travel to Afghanistan for training."

Al-Faruq, who is now under US custody, had earlier confessed that he is al-Qaeda’s senior representative in Southeast Asia. He was sent to the Philippines by senior al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah, who is also now in US custody.

About 1,000 Indonesians reportedly were trained from 1996 to 1998 alone at the camp, which was designated as "Camp Hudeibiah." Later a second training camp, called "Camp Palestine," was set up also in Camp Abubakar.

Camp Abubakar was overran by the military in July 2000 in an offensive. Back then, no al-Qaeda training camps were reported found.

CNN said al-Qaeda-linked fighters in the region, in retaliation, bombed the Jakarta residence of then Ambassador to Indonesia Leonides Caday.

Ghadzali Jaafar, the MILF political adviser, yesterday denied the CNN report and his organization’s links to al-Qaeda. "The MILF is not part of any other group. Sometimes we’re called terrorists because we use arms in self-defense and sometimes civilians are killed," he told CNN.

CNN reported that Al-Faruq even stayed with the MILF for three years before moving to Indonesia, where he began recruiting terrorists for al-Qaeda.

He was arrested June 5 by Indonesian authorities, from where he allegedly had been working to unite militant groups from several countries in Southeast Asia for al-Qaeda’s cause.

He was sent to the US-controlled Bagram air base in Afghanistan, where the Central Intelligence Agency has been interrogating him.

Intelligence sources had told CNN that al-Faruq was able to recruit nine local militant groups in Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand.

Al-Faruq reportedly worked closely with Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, who is wanted in Malaysia and Singapore on terrorism charges.

Denying any links to al-Qaeda, Ba’asyir lives freely in Indonesia and continues to campaign for an Islamic state.

After the fall of al-Qaeda’s bases in Afghanistan last year, intelligence sources had told CNN that the terrorist network is moving its operations to Southeast Asia.

The region reportedly now has the "highest concentration" of al-Qaeda operatives outside Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Al-Faruq had reportedly confessed to American investigators that al-Qaeda was planning car or truck bomb attacks against the US embassy in Manila and in neighboring countries.

His information prompted US officials last week to raise a terror alert to its second highest level, from a "significant risk" of attacks or code yellow to a "high danger" or code orange.

It is the highest alert level imposed since the system was established in March.

Over a dozen US embassies were closed as a precaution last week, the first anniversary of the attacks on the US, while the mission in Manila remained open but was put under tight police security.

According to a top-secret CIA document and regional intelligence reports obtained by Time, al-Faruq said Zubaydah and fellow senior al-Qaeda official Abu Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi had ordered him to "plan large-scale attacks against US interests in Indonesia, Malaysia, [the] Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam and Cambodia."

"In particular," the CIA document added, "[al-] Faruq prepared a plan to conduct simultaneous car/truck bomb attacks against US embassies in the region to take place on or near" the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.