Jakarta, Mindanao bombings linked?

President Arroyo vowed yesterday to help Indonesia hunt down the "terrorists" behind last Sunday’s Jakarta airport bombing that wounded 11 people.

She did not rule out the possibility that the attack may be connected to recent terrorist bombings in Mindanao, including one at Davao City’s international airport last March 4.

"Terrorism has shuttled between Indonesia and the Philippines, and we are both determined to fight it tactically and strategically," Mrs. Arroyo said in a statement, condemning the attack. "If there are any links between terrorist incidents in Jakarta and in Mindanao these will be checked, followed up and neutralized under a scheme of intelligence sharing and law enforcement cooperation."

Mrs. Arroyo said she would discuss the continuing threat of terrorism in the region with Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi on the sidelines of a summit of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which opens today in Bangkok, Thailand.

Aside from terrorism, the region is reeling from the SARS outbreak, which will be on top of the summit’s agenda.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam.

Malaysia is brokering talks between the Philippine government and the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which is suspected of carrying out two bomb attacks in Davao nearly two months ago.

In one of the attacks, on March 4, a bomb went off just outside the terminal of Davao International Airport, killing 22 people and wounding over 100 others.

It was the worst terrorist attack in the region since the bombing in Indonesia’s Bali resort in October last year that killed 202 people, almost alf of them Australian tourists.

Philippine intelligence officials have said some Indonesian extremists may have been involved in the bombing of the Sasa wharf also in Davao City last April 2.

Jemaah Islamiyah, reportedly the Asian chapter of Osama bin laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network, was accused by Indonesian authorities of masterminding the deadly blast.

Philippine officials suspect than an MILF "special urban terrorist" unit and Jemaah Islamiya were involved in the Davao bombings. The 12,500-strong MILF denied any involvement.

The rebels have been waging a decades-old guerrilla campaign to set up an independent Islamic state in Mindanao, the southern third of the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines.

The MILF also rejected allegations that it gave terrorist training to Islamic militants based in Indonesia. Indonesian authorities suspect that the secessionist Free Aceh Movement, based in Indonesia’s Aceh province, was involved in the Jakarta airport blast. The Aceh rebels denied the charge.