Moro rebel group unaware of Malaysian militant link

Moro rebel group unaware of Malaysian militant link

Agencies, Kuala Lumpur

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a separatist Philippine
rebel group, said on Sunday it was not aware that any members of
a militant Malaysian Muslim group had trained at its camps.

Dozens of suspected militants have been detained in Singapore,
Malaysia and the Philippines recently, with some linked to
regional terror plots and to the al-Qaeda network of Osama bin
Laden, prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Malaysian police chief Norian Mai said last week that 19 of
the 23 members of a group called Kumpulan Militan Malaysia (KMM)
arrested since Dec. 9 received militant training overseas.

Nine of them trained at Camp Abu Bakar run by the MILF in the
southern Philippines, he said.

Several of the men were Singaporeans and Indonesians with
permanent residency status in Malaysia.

But Eid Kabalu, a MILF spokesman, was quoted by Malaysia's
official Bernama news agency as saying that the group did not
have a policy of admitting foreigners into its training camps.

"We need to know the time they received the training, so that
we can check," he told Bernama.

Kabalu said there was a possibility that the nine KMM members
could have disguised themselves as locals to enter the MILF camps
and receive training.

"This is a possibility which we cannot discount," he said.

The Philippine government signed a cease-fire agreement in
October with the MILF, which fought for nearly 30 years for a
separatist Islamic state on the southern Philippine island of
Mindanao.

Kabalu said the MILF was transparent in its operation and had
no links with other groups in the region.

Malaysian authorities accuse the KMM of seeking to overthrow
the government and install an Islamic state in multicultural
Malaysia and also say it has links with al-Qaeda.

Meanwhile, Singapore acknowledged on Saturday it shared
information with the Philippines which led to the arrest of a
suspected militant allegedly involved in a plot to bomb U.S.
targets here.

The government cited the information-sharing as an example of
the cooperation among Southeast Asian security agencies in the
fight against terrorism.

Philippine authorities have acknowledged that a tip from
Singapore was instrumental in the arrest of the suspect, Fathur
Rohman Al Ghozi, an Indonesian.

"Arising from information that the Internal Security
Department (ISD) shared, the Philippines arrested Fathur Rohman
Al Ghozi recently," the Singapore government said in a statement.

"The arrest is an example of the close cooperation between ISD
and its foreign counterparts in the fight against international
terrorism," it said.

Acting on the tip-off, Philippine authorities earlier this
month arrested Al Ghozi, a bomb expert who was allegedly involved
in a plot to blow up American targets in Singapore.

Thirteen suspected terrorists detained in Singapore have
identified him as one of several foreigners whom they had worked
with.

Al Ghozi and the 13 detainees are alleged to be members of
Jemaah Islamiah, an extremist group based in Southeast Asia which
is said to be linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

Al Ghozi, who arrived in Singapore in October, allegedly
helped the group make video recordings of potential targets
including the U.S., Australian, British and Israeli embassies and
commercial buildings housing American firms.

Al Ghozi's arrest led to several other detentions and the
discovery of a cache of explosives and weapons in the southern
Philippines.

In the statement, the government also clarified a report that
three of several suspected Jemaah Islamiah members arrested by
Malaysian authorities recently were Singaporean.

One of the three, Shukry Omar Talib, renounced his Singaporean
citizenship in 1987. The two others, Muhamad Ismail Anuwarul and
Abdul Nasir Anuwarul, are permanent residents of Malaysia, it
said.

Separately, an Indonesian Muslim cleric being investigated for
alleged involvement in an al-Qaeda regional network has denied
calling for a holy war in Singapore and Malaysia.

But Ustad Abu Bakar Ba'asyir told Singapore's Sunday Times
that the largely Roman Catholic Philippines deserved to be the
target of a jihad, and admitted having met some militants
detained in Singapore and Malaysia over the past decade as a
preacher.

Dozens of suspects linked by authorities to the al-Qaeda
international network led by fugitive militant Osama bin laden
have been rounded up in Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines
in the wake of the September attacks in the United States.

Ba'asyir denied while under Indonesian police questioning last
week that he was associated with al-Qaeda but hailed bin Laden as
"a true Muslim fighter."

"I advocate jihad because it is important in the Koran," the
64-year-old Ba'asyir was quoted as saying in the interview with
the Singapore newspaper.