Manila's bombs and terror

The bomb explosions last Sunday in the southern Philippine city of General Santos raise issues of concern, not only for the Philippines but also its immediate neighbors.

Philippine investigators said two suspects arrested after the General Santos blasts had explosives training in Malaysia, together with six or seven others being sought. The two were being checked for links with Jemaah Islamiah, a regional militant grouping believed to be a part of the worldwide al-Qaeda web.

It is possible that the Sunday blasts were related to the jailing by a Philippine court last week of Fathur Rohman al- Ghozi, an Indonesian and Jemaah Islamiah cadre. He had been convicted for possessing explosives and passport forgery. In the light of the arrests in Singapore and Malaysia of men suspected to be Jemaah Islamiah operatives, and strong suspicion that a number of its leaders are sheltering in Indonesia, the case for tight border controls in Southeast Asia has reasserted itself.

The extensive coastlines of the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia show how hard it is to detect the transporting of explosives and terror-related paraphernalia across borders.

The Philippines, however, has found it chronically difficult to put down its southern Muslim rebellion. The al-Qaeda network is exploiting the Muslim discontent, and the U.S. has drawn a direct link between al-Qaeda and the Abu Sayyaf faction.

This looks like the beginnings of American military involvement in the Philippines' anti-insurgency campaign.

The hosts should be left in no doubt that operational caution has to be observed scrupulously to ensure that the presence of foreign soldiers does not become a liability to Philippine security. It could easily turn to that if the Americans get sucked into combat.

-- The Straits Times, Singapore