JI recruiting North Cotabato students?

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao — The police and the military are closely monitoring private and public schools in North Cotabato following reports that the Jemaah Islamiyah, an Indonesian terror group with links to the Abu Sayyaf, are recruiting students.

The move was in response to a directive from North Cotabato Gov. Emmanuel Piñol, chairman of the provincial peace and order council.

Among the schools being monitored is the government-owned University of Southern Mindanao (USM) in Kabacan town, where there are supposedly radical student organizations.

For two weeks now, reports have been circulating in the province that Jemaah Islamiyah operatives have been recruiting radical students at USM as well as in other schools in the province.

Intelligence sources said the recruits would be trained in handling explosives possibly in the Liguasan Marsh, a 220,000-hectare delta at the boundary of Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat and North Cotabato.

A military intelligence report has tagged a Moro rebel commander, Ustadz Shamier Hashim, as the coddler of the group of Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khaddafy Janjalani and Jemaah Islamiyah operatives in the Liguasan Marsh.

Piñol, in an interview with the Notre Dame Broadcasting Corp. in Kidapawan City, said he is apprehensive about the reported recruitment activities of Jemaah Islamiyah because of the serious security problems it could cause in North Cotabato.

Kabacan Mayor Luzviminda Tan said she has been receiving persistent reports about the "recruitment activities" of the terror group in her town.

Tan told Catholic radio station dxMS in Cotabato City that the recruiters have promised their prospective recruits of high pay and fringe benefits.

Tan said there has been talk of the recruits being trained in handling explosives.

Earlier, other Kabacan officials said they were convinced that last month’s bombing of a commercial area in their municipality could be a test mission of young Jemaah Islamiyah recruits.