Al-Qaeda linked group exporting terror from Philippines: U.S.
Al-Qaeda linked group exporting terror from Philippines: U.S.
Agence France-Presse, Manila
The United States said on Tuesday it remained deeply concerned about terrorist training camps in the southern Philippines run by Islamic militants with links to the Al-Qaeda network.
U.S. ambassador Francis Ricciardone said the camps on Mindanao island were run by Jamaah Islamiyah, the group blamed for the 2002 bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali and other attacks across Southeast Asia.
"With respect to the Philippines we remain very concerned at the presence of training camps of the Jamaah Islamiyah," he told the Foreign Correspondents Association in Manila.
He said group's activities on Mindanao, where Muslim rebels have been fighting an anti-government insurgency for decades, posed a threat not only to the Philippines but to the wider region.
"When you train someone in Mindanao to device bombs and how to plant them, that becomes a threat and it's not limited just to the immediate neighborhood where that person was trained," Ricciardone said.
"They can go throughout the Philippines, throughout Southeast Asia, throughout the world, and murder people. So it is a continuing threat."
The ambassador said JI had been able to set up shop in the southern Philippines because of the weak rule of law in the area.
Filipino security officials acknowledge that JI militants, including some who have been linked to bombings in Indonesia, trained until the late 1990s in guerrilla camps on Mindanao.
Some of the camps were operated by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the Philippines' largest separatist guerrilla group.
The MILF publicly condemned terrorism last year as it prepared to hold peace talks with President Gloria Arroyo's government, but the subsequent death of its leader Salamat Hashim have left negotiations in limbo.
Filipino Defense Secretary Eduardo Ermita says the authorities estimate there were still around 40 Jamaah Islamiyah militants in the Mount Cararao region of central Mindanao. He says most of them are Indonesian, who are training local Muslims.
JI's ultimate goal is to unite Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and the southern Philippines into a fundamentalist Islamic state. It uses terrorist attacks as its most high-profile weapon to destabilize regional governments.
Six suspected Filipino JI members were arrested in southern Manila last week after police foiled what they described as a plot to bomb the June 30 inauguration of President Arroyo.
Ricciardone said terrorist funds were flowing across borders and he said there was a direct link to the Philippines from the Middle East.
"We know that there are at least ideological links and personal links from here to the Middle East, from Mindanao to the Middle East," he said.
"There are personal connections, family connections, (they) travel back and forth and they are quite worrisome."