AFP chief says JI suspects no longer with Janjalani in Mindanao

Two Malaysian suspected terrorists wanted in Indonesia for the Oct. 12, 2002 Bali bombing are still holed up in Central Mindanao, Armed Forces chief Gen. Generoso Senga said yesterday.

Senga said Dulmatin and Umar Patek did not join Khaddafy Janjalani and his Abu Sayyaf band when they fled to Basilan earlier this month to escape a relentless military operation.

"The latest report that I got, they (Dulmatin and Patek) were still in Central Mindanao," he told reporters in Camp Aguinaldo yesterday.

The key leaders of the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist network have been monitored to be soliciting and channeling funds for their local operatives to finance future terrorist attacks, he added.

Dulmatin carries a $10-million bounty on his head, while Patek has a $1-million reward for his capture from the US government.

Military intelligence officials said the two JI terrorists reportedly gave P250,000 to the Rajah Solaiman Movement (RSM) to bomb a crowded nightclub in Ermita during the Holy Week.

However, the plot was foiled with the arrest of Dawud Santos, the No. 2 man of the RSM, formed by former Catholics who had converted to Islam.

Dulmatin and Patek are reportedly being protected by Janjalani’s men in Central Mindanao, although the Abu Sayyaf chieftain had already fled to his jungle lair in Basilan.

The JI’s hand in the foiled Holy Week bomb plot was revealed by RSM leader Ahmed Santos, who was arrested in Zamboanga City last Oct. 26.

With links to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda global terror network, the Abu Sayyaf and the JI have been blamed for the Valentine’s Day bombings in Makati, Davao and General Santos cities in Mindanao last February.

It has also been linked to the bombing of a passenger ferry off Manila Bay a year earlier.

Both attacks left over 100 people killed and hundreds others injured. — Jaime Laude