Backlash seen for RP as it squeezes out rebels
Backlash seen for RP as it squeezes out rebels
By Cecil Morella
MANILA (AFP): International terrorists could be targeting the Philippines due to President Joseph Estrada's move to stamp out Moro extremism in his own backyard, officials and diplomats said Wednesday after a deadly bomb attack on Manila's envoy to Indonesia.
Manila placed its foreign embassies and consulates on the highest state of alert after Tuesday's blast in Jakarta which killed two people and injured ambassador Leonides Caday and 20 others.
Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado said Wednesday the Philippines' largest Moro separatist group could be involved despite its denials, and added he has contacted Indonesian and Malaysian defense officials to come up with a concerted response.
"This would go beyond our border patrol agreements and would involve strengthening our intelligence tie-ups and preventing terroristic activities from occurring," he added.
Foreign department spokesman George Reyes said Wednesday Manila concurs with Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid's theory "that this could be linked to our security problem in Mindanao," the southern Philippine hotbed of two Moro separatist rebellions.
"But this could also be the handiwork of indigenous groups in Indonesia which seek to embarrass President Wahid," Reyes said in a radio interview.
The bombing of the envoy's residence has given an international dimension to the Philippine government's 31-year battle with home-grown communist and Moro separatist insurgencies.
The Filipino rebels' ties to radical Islamic groups abroad are well-documented.
"We have no experience of a bombing incident in our embassies abroad," said Estrada's National Security Adviser Alexander Aguirre.
Reyes said despite Indonesia's own internal troubles, a "risk assessment" made on the mission had not anticipated the attack.
Philippines police chief Panfilo Lacson had warned Filipinos in late June to brace for possible attacks as government forces battled Moro separatists in Mindanao -- but Manila focussed on the home front by securing commercial centers and other high- profile targets.
Foreign diplomats told AFP here the bombing could be linked to an upsurge in Islamic extremism in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.
The rise of armed Islamic separatist movements in the region, particularly in the vast Indonesian archipelago, has been a growing concern for the three nations and their seven other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) partners.
ASEAN ministers and their regional security partners declared in Bangkok last month that "a united, democratic and economically prosperous Indonesia was fundamental to the maintenance of regional security."
Moro Abu Sayyaf rebels based in the southern Philippines mounted a cross-border raid into the Malaysian island resort of Sipadan in April and seized 21 western tourists and Asian resort workers.
More than 100 days later, they continue to hold 14 of them and a three-member French television crew on Jolo island.
Shortly after the hostage seizure, President Estrada struck out against the rebels as government forces flushed out the Abu Sayyaf from Basilan island and seized all territory held by the larger Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Mindanao.
The two campaigns claimed hundreds of military casualties and displaced nearly a million civilians. There was also a rebel backlash as commercial targets were bombed in Manila and Mindanao.