Terrorists in RP becoming more sophisticated, defense chief says

Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz disclosed that Abu Sayyaf extremists, who were allegedly trained by Indonesian bomb experts, have developed sophisticated explosive devices similar to those being used by terrorists in the Middle East.

Cruz told the Manila Overseas Press Club forum at the Intercontinental Hotel in Makati City on Thursday night that improvised explosive devices recovered from Abu Sayyaf camps in the jungles of Patikul, Sulu, indicated an increased capability of local terrorists to conduct attacks, but he assured the people that the ongoing military operations have apparently foiled the terrorist plot.

"Clearing operations of their (Abu Sayyaf) mountain lairs have led to the discovery of a bomb-making facility and the recovery of several improvised explosive devices. Notably, the recovered improvised bombs indicate sophistication in the terrorists’ bomb-making capability," Cruz told diplomats, military officials, and journalists led by MOPC chairman and STAR publisher Max V. Soliven.

He described one of the recovered bombs is armed and ready to be used. "It has a timing device with electronic anti-tamper sensors, loaded with hundreds of eight-millimeter ball bearings and is designed to kill people within a 150-meter kill zone."

Cruz said these explosive devices are similar to the improvised explosive devices used by terrorists in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

"Just recently, as military operations continue, a shipment of 600 kilos of ammonium nitrate coming from Sulu was intercepted by ‘Task Force Zamboanga.’ With the interdiction of this shipment, there are reasons to believe that a potentially lethal terrorist bombing campaign has been disrupted," he said.

Police and military units seized on Monday some 600 kilos of ammonium nitrate on a ferry boat from Jolo, Sulu that docked at the Zamboanga City wharf. The chemicals were hidden in sacks placed inside cigarette boxes that were falsely declared as dried fish. Ammonium nitrate is normally used as fertilizer but the volatile chemical is also a favorite ingredient of Abu Sayyaf terrorists in making explosives.

Cruz said the military had assured that pursuit operations will continue in the jungles of Sulu to search for Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani and Jemaah Islamiyah bomb experts Dulmatin, who goes by one name, and Umar Patek.

Dulmatin and Umar are both suspected members of the Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah who are wanted for the bombings in Bali, Indonesia in 2002.

Last month, the military launched an offensive against Janjalani’s stronghold that has so far resulted in the killing of at least 16 government troops and scores of Abu Sayyaf guerrillas.

The AFP launched Oplan Ultimatum in a bid to pursue the extremists and the foreign terrorists who have slipped into Mindanao to train Abu Sayyaf terrorists in making bombs.

Cruz said six terror bombings in the past six years have killed 189 people and injured more than 700 others.

They included five nearly simultaneous attacks in Manila in December 2000 that killed 22 people and a blast that caused a fire on a ferry boat in Manila Bay in February 2004, killing 116 people in the worst terror attack in Southeast Asia since the nightclub bombings in Bali, Indonesia, killed 202 people in October 2002. — With Jaime Laude, AP