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."