Philippines, allies boosting fight against JI: Arroyo
Philippines, allies boosting fight against JI: Arroyo
Agence France-Presse, Manila
The Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia are preparing to thwart fresh attempts by al-Qaeda-linked extremist group Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) to plot terror attacks, Philippine President Gloria Arroyo said on Tuesday.
"All three countries are prepared for a JI build-up," Arroyo said in a statement.
"We are strengthening legal and operational procedures to deal with terrorists as well as drug syndicates," she said.
Philippine intelligence officials have said that while the JI has been weakened by a series of arrests in the region, it still continues to plan attacks in a bid to establish its dream of an Islamic superstate in the region.
The JI, believed to be the Southeast Asian arm of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, is blamed for the bomb attacks in the Indonesian island resort of Bali that killed more than 200 people last October.
Arroyo had earlier acknowledged that the JI, along with Muslim extremists, have been working to establish a "radical enclave" in the region and have carried out small clandestine training operations, including in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao.
But Arroyo said on Monday that a concerted effort among the countries concerned could eventually defeat the JI.
"With enough teamwork, we can avert any plan of sowing terror in the region and finally win this war," she said.
Intelligence officials here have linked the JI to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the country's main insurgent group that Arroyo has blamed for bombings and attacks that left nearly 100 dead in the south early this year.
A self-confessed Indonesian member of the JI, Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, has admitted to police that JI leaders Hambali, alias Riduan Isamuddin, and Faiz Abubakar Bafana, had financed a December 2000 bombing on a Manila train station that killed 22.
Hambali, said to have been the operations chief of the JI, remains at large while Bafana has been jailed in Singapore.