RP asked to track down Indonesian militant

MANILA, Philippines - Indonesian officials have asked Philippine authorities to track down an Indonesian fugitive wanted in connection with several beheadings who is now helping to train militants in an insurgency-wracked Philippine region, security officials said yesterday.

Sanusi, who like many Indonesians uses only one name, has been monitored in Mindanao’s marshy heartland, two Philippine intelligence officials said. He fled to the region after being accused of ordering militants in 2007 to behead three people in the eastern Indonesian town of Poso, where Islamist militants had launched a series of bloody attacks on Christians and government workers.

An Indonesian embassy official said his government has asked Philippine authorities to capture Sanusi, who was spotted at a mosque near southern Cotabato city during the holy month of Ramadan last fall. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

A senior Philippine military intelligence official said Sanusi has emerged as a key operative of Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian terror group linked to al-Qaeda. He is believed to have helped fund and organize religious and combat training for new Indonesian militant recruits in Mindanao, where local guerrillas are fighting to create an independent Muslim state.

Sanusi has not been implicated in any attack in the Philippines and is not on any terrorist backlist because authorities are only just beginning to uncover his activities and the role he plays, according to the military intelligence official, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his post.

Another government intelligence official said Sanusi has been trying to link up Filipino Muslim guerrillas with potential financial donors in the Middle East. - AP