PNP monitoring JI suspects in RP

Philippine National Police (PNP) Intelligence Group deputy chief Senior Superintendent Romeo Ricardo said yesterday his unit is verifying reports that foreigners belonging to the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) have tied up with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and are hatching plans to sow terror anew in the Philippines.

"There are reports, although we are still gathering enough evidence to prove (them)," Ricardo, who also leads the PNP anti-terrorist Task Force Sanglahi, said.

He said Metro Manila residents should not be alarmed by the reports because security measures have been implemented to ensure peace and order.

The US State Department warned the Philippines and other countries in Southeast Asia yesterday of the imminent threat posed by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terror network in the wake of the attacks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and Koronadal.

"There are continuing operations against the Abu Sayyaf and the MILF and other foreign terrorist organizations, including the JI and MILF," he said.

The PNP and AFP are not letting their guard down in their anti-terrorism campaign, particularly in Mindanao, after MILF chairman Hashim Salamat called for intensified anti-government operations there, he said. "There are intensified intelligence gathering efforts and intelligence exchange coordination with our counterparts here and abroad."

On orders by PNP chief Director General Hermogenes Ebdane Jr., Ricardo said the PNP is implementing a three-tiered strategy against terrorism, including target-hardening and intensified security in Metro Manila and urban centers in Mindanao.

Ebdane said the attacks by extremist groups are "to be expected."

"There is a common denominator" between the extremist groups in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, he said.

Ebdane explained that the mujahedin — Islamist guerrillas — of these three countries met when they were sent to fight in the Afghan war against the Russians in 1979. When the Russians pulled out of Afghanistan in the mid-1980s, these mujahedin formed extremist groups when they returned to their own countries.

The Filipino mujahedins formed the Abu Sayyaf, while those from Egypt and Yemen formed "more radical" groups, based on Western intelligence reports, he said.

Ebdane said that unlike Riyadh — which has areas where expatriates congregate — there are no potential targets in Mindanao.

He said he has not seen the latest reports by Cable News Network and has no contact with Western intelligence.

To fight terrorists, according to Ebdane, the "bottom line" is citizen awareness "because the police cannot do it alone."

Sources in the intelligence community said the Abu Sayyaf have sought funding from the al-Qaeda to sustain their terrorist operations in the country.

These sources added that the bandits are running out of cash and, therefore, finding it difficult to stage terrorist attacks.

The sources said Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khaddafi Janjalani recently sent video footage of their bomb-making training and terrorism exercises to their al-Qaeda contacts based in the Middle East as a basis for their request for financial support.

The bandits vowed to put the training shown in the video to use in actual terrorist tactics once funds are made available to them, the sources said.

"Apparently, the Abu Sayyaf coffers are fast depleting because of the freezing of their bank deposits here," one source said.

The Abu Sayyaf was able to rake in large sums of cash through their kidnap-for-ransom activities in the past years, but the government cut off the bandits’ cash supply by freezing their bank accounts.

Bin Laden and slain Abu Sayyaf chieftain Abdurajak Janjalani became friends at the height of the Soviet-Afghan war. This opened wide avenues for contacts between the Basilan-based bandit group and al-Qaeda that remain despite the elder Janjalani’s death in December 1998.

Meanwhile, confidential military debriefings of three former hostages found that Abu Sayyaf guerrillas received combat and explosives training under two Indonesian instructors and threatened to attack United States troops who are to be deployed in the southern Philippines.

Two Filipino women and an Indonesian sailor who escaped last month after several months of jungle captivity also gave insights into how the ragtag, al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf have survived military offensives on Jolo island.

US and Philippine defense officials are finalizing the terms of a counterterrorism training exercise later this year that would deploy American forces in Jolo to train Filipino soldiers on how to better fight the Abu Sayyaf.

Similar training by US troops last year on nearby Basilan island was credited with crippling a main Abu Sayyaf faction. But many of the group’s leaders and members shifted to Jolo and started new abductions and other attacks.

One of the women who escaped said she overheard Abu Sayyaf rebels talking excitedly about the expected arrival of US soldiers on Jolo.

"The (Abu Sayyaf are) eager to have imported clothes… to have their heads," she was quoted as saying.

The rebels also plan to welcome US troops with suicide attackers and car bombs, she added.

The former hostage said the Abu Sayyaf wanted to stage attacks to avenge the death of hundreds of Filipino Muslims who battled American colonizers in Jolo in the early 1900s.

The hostages also reported the arrival of two Indonesian men last December to help train Abu Sayyaf guerrillas and fresh recruits in Jolo’s mountainous Patikul town.

The first of three batches of trainees, consisting of 30 rebels, got training in "explosives, guerrilla tactics and basic operation of crew serve weapons," one woman hostage said, referring to weapons that require more than one person to fire. One of the escaped Indonesians said the combat training included lessons in mortar firing and "commando crawls."

The training was completed in March, the debriefing report said. Some trainees were tested in a recent clash with government troops, and about 100 left Jolo that month aboard two speedboats with the two Indonesians and Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khaddafi Janjalani, possibly to carry out attacks elsewhere in the south, the report said.

One of the escaped Indonesian hostages said he was certain the foreign trainers were his compatriots because they spoke Javanese, the report said.

It added that the foreigners’ presence bolsters suspicions of links between the Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah.

Constantly on the run and evading troops, the guerrillas are supplied with food and ammunition by couriers and residents of some Muslim communities and through improvisation, the ex-hostages said.

They recalled how Janjalani and his aides dug up an unexploded bomb dropped by a military plane and retrieved the powder inside.

The guerrillas have satellite telephones, rifles with sniper scopes and handheld two-way radios, which they used to get warnings from supporters about military positions, the former hostages said.

Hostages were asked to carry ammunition or guns as a disguise, they said.

"Often … they feel like only playing hide and seek with the military," one hostage said.