Manila finds bomb plot, links Asian group to blast

Manila finds bomb plot, links Asian group to blast

John O'Callaghan and Ruben Alabastro, Reuters, Manila

The Philippines said on Wednesday it uncovered a plan by Moro
rebels to stage reprisal attacks if the United States invades
Iraq and suggested a radical Southeast Asian group may be linked
to a deadly blast last week.

Eight days after 21 people were killed in the southern city of
Davao, police said they arrested a man carrying two grenades and
a mobile phone with numbers of extremists suspected of hatching a
"diabolical plot to sow terror" in Manila.

The little-known Raja Solaiman Movement planned bombings "in
case the United States and its allies attack Iraq" and to support
the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), said Reynaldo Velasco,
head of Philippine National Police operations in the capital.

Murder charges over the March 4 attack at Davao airport have
been filed against 151 guerrillas from the MILF, the largest of
four groups fighting for an Islamic homeland in the south of the
mainly Roman Catholic country.

The group has denied any involvement in the worst terror
attack in the Philippines since 22 people were killed in a series
of bombings in Manila in December 2000.

Jamaah Islamiyah -- a regional religious group linked by
Western intelligence agencies to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda
network and blamed for deadly bombings in Bali last October --
may have had a hand in the Davao blast, security officials said.

"That seems to be the developing assessment," National Bureau
of Investigation director Reynaldo Wycoco told reporters.

He said there were similarities between the Davao attack and
the bombings in Manila that led to the jailing of self-confessed
Jamaah Islamiah member Fathur al-Ghozi last year. The Indonesian
told Philippine investigators he was helped by MILF rebels.
"The modus operandi is the same," Wycoco said.

Indonesian police are investigating Jamaah Islamiah's possible
involvement in bombings on the resort island of Bali on Oct. 12
that killed about 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.

Singapore and Malaysia have arrested scores of people accused
of being members of the group.

The Davao bombing, threats of more rebel violence and fresh
fighting in the southern Philippines have done nothing to bolster
investor confidence shaken by bulging budget deficits, a tumbling
peso and pervasive corruption.

The army said five soldiers and more than 100 MILF guerrillas
had been killed, mostly by howitzer fire and rockets launched by
helicopter gunships, over the past two days as the rebels tried
to recapture a key stronghold in the town of Pikit.

"They kept on advancing like they would not be hit by
bullets," military spokesman Maj. Julieto Ando told Reuters.

The government said on Monday it was offering "the hand of
peace" to rebels who renounce violence.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo dispatched former Foreign
Minister Roberto Romulo to Malaysia on Wednesday to seek its help
in persuading the MILF to resume stalled peace talks.

Malaysia is brokering the negotiations but the MILF wants
troops out of its base in Pikit before it will talk to Manila.

"I am calling on the MILF to take clear and specific moves to
step out of the boundaries of terrorism," Arroyo told reporters.

U.S. troops are now training Philippine units in the jungles
near the southern city of Zamboanga and are due to start another
series of counter-terrorism exercises soon.

The communist New People's Army said on Tuesday U.S. soldiers
would be "legitimate targets" if the new exercises were held near
its strongholds and that it had forged an alliance with the MILF
for mutual support but not joint attacks.