PNP: Arrest of Rizal Day bombers a blow vs terror

Philippine National Police officials believe the arrest of Saifullah Yunos, confessed leader of the Rizal Day bombers, and his alleged confederate, Egyptian Dia Algrabre have dealt a big blow to terrorist operations here and abroad.

Chief Superintendent Jesus Versosa, PNP intelligence director, said it would take time before the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Indonesia-based terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) could re-establish links.

"But we will never waver in our pursuit to go after suspected terrorist in the country," he added.

PNP deputy intelligence director and Task Force Sanglahi commander Senior Superintendent Romeo Ricardo said there has been a "definite reduction" in the capability of the MILF and the JI to sow terror in the country.

But Western and Philippine authorities have reported that Mindanao has become the training center for JI, Al Qaeda’s Southeast Asia affiliate, drawing recruits from a number of countries.

For the last six to nine months, recruits mostly from Indonesia and Malaysia, but also a few from as far off as Pakistan and the Middle East, have received training at inaccessible, rough-hewn sites, basically a few huts and some tents in a marshy region in Mindanao, officials said.

The training is similar to what their older colleagues in terrorism got in Afghanistan when that served as Al Qaeda’s base, they added.

In Mindanao, though, the training appears to include more of a special emphasis on the use of sophisticated explosives, the officials said.

"We’ve closed the camps in Afghanistan, but they’re still operating in the southern Philippines," said an Australian official in Canberra.

More broadly, intelligence officials say there is a constant movement of international terrorists across an area that includes Mindanao, islands in the Sulu Sea, Sabah and northern Indonesia.

A joint Philippine-US military exercise scheduled to begin in a few weeks will take place in Sulu, which is in the middle of that zone.

"I’m convinced that Jemaah Islamiyah, Al Qaeda and fellow travelers are able to move around Southeast Asia fairly freely," a Western diplomat said.

Meanwhile, Versosa said detained terrorist suspect, Indonesian Fathur Rohman al-Ghozie has been charged before the Department of Justice for the frusrated murder of former ambassador to ,Jakarta Leonides Caday.

In his affidavit admitting participation in the bombing of Caday’s residence in Jakarta on Aug. 1, 2000, al-Ghozie implicated one Riduan Isamudin, alias Hambali, who is believed to be associated with international terrorist Osama bin Laden.

Al-Ghozie, a confessed JI member and bomb expert, also accused a certain Usman al Abas and Abdul Jabar of taking part in the attack on Caday’s residence.

"I was taken by Usman and Abdul Jabar on a tour of the Philippine ambassador’s house and that of the Philippine embassy so we could determine where to stake out the ambassador," he said in Filipino.

Al Ghozie said the "sympathy attack" was funded by one Faiz bin Abu Bakar in retaliation for the capture of Camp Abu Bakar–the MILF’s main redoubt in Mindanao– by government troops during the Estrada administration.

Versosa said the link between Al-Ghozie and Yunos shows that the MILF has contact with JI, and possibly Al Qaeda, the international terrorist netwwork of Bin Laden.

During a recent confrontation at Camp Crame in Quezon City, Yunos was identified by Al-Ghozie as the one who planned the Rizal Day bombings.

JI has been linked to the nightclub bombings that killed more than 200 people last year on the Indonesian island of Bali.–Christina Mendez, New York Times