GMA to step up campaign vs JI

President Arroyo vowed yesterday to step up the campaign to flush out of the country members of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror network even after she was lauded for her leadership in the war against international and local terrorist groups.

"There are some JI operatives who are still in the country and they are being hunted down by the government," she said. "We are keeping them on the run so they cannot consolidate to plot out large-scale terrorist actions."

The President reaffirmed the government’s all-out war against terrorism in an official statement she issued a day after Ambassador J. Cofer Black, the United States’ top envoy for counter-terrorism, praised her staunch commitment to fight the menace posed by JI extremists and other terror groups in the region.

Black, accompanied by US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone and National Security Adviser Roilo Golez, met with Mrs. Arroyo at the Palace last Monday at the end of his three-day official mission in the country.

The President, however, admitted that the government’s operations against the JI — a group based in Jakarta, Indonesia — are hampered by alleged "lost commands" of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) which have been reported to be coddling some of the Indonesian extremists.

The Arroyo administration has been trying to restart stalled peace talks with the MILF.

"These JI cells are at times given free passage by low-level armed groups and we have asked the MILF leadership to ostracize and isolate the terrorists," Mrs. Arroyo said.

She vowed that the government "will press on with the manhunt as well as push the peace process with the MILF so that the communities can be freed from this extremist threat."

While the President did not go into details, she was apparently alluding to the case of top JI official Taufek Rifke, allegedly the JI’s No. 2 man in the southern Philippines responsible for funneling funds to bombing operations.

Rifke, a 23-year-old Indonesian, was arrested in Southern Mindanao last month. Under questioning by military authorities, he admitted being given shelter by certain MILF commanders.

He is believed to have trained under bomb expert Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, who escaped from a Manila police jail in July but was gunned down by security forces in North Cotabato three months later.

Golez earlier said that Black "conveyed in no uncertain terms that the message of his government, particularly from President Bush, is that they were very impressed in Philippine counter-terrorism. We are considered the best in the region."

He cited that the US government is complimenting Mrs. Arroyo "for her courageous leadership in the fight against the JI."

Black had recommended that the best practices developed by Philippine counter-terrorism bodies "be emulated and copied," saying that the Philippines’ success and progress in its war on terror "directly protect not only the people in the Philippines but also the citizens in the US."