RP eyes foreign extremists after airport blast

RP eyes foreign extremists after airport blast

MANILA (Reuters): The Philippines, on high alert after its
main international airport was rocked by a bomb blast, said on
Monday it was investigating the possible presence of foreign
extremists in the country.

Presidential spokesman Ricardo Puno said police had "spotted
"a couple of possible suspects that have been identified with
some foreign groups" and expected arrests soon.

No one was hurt but an extension building outside the main
terminal area of Manila's international airport was badly damaged
by an explosion from a home-made device on Sunday, the fifth bomb
attack in the capital in a month.

Puno said a check of airport records showed "there may be some
personalities that have been coming here which have somehow been
identified as being part of some terrorist groups.

"All I can say is that they're not Filipinos," he told
reporters, without elaborating.

Police have arrested 26 Filipino militants and charged them
with murder over two bomb attacks on Manila shopping malls.

No one has been arrested for the airport explosion but airport
chief Colonel Antonio Gana said it could be the work of people
"trying to create havoc... partly to destabilize the
government".

The Manila bombings coincided with a surge of separatist
militancy in the southern Philippines, where the Abu Sayyaf
rebels have been holding 21 mostly foreign hostages for 44 days.

The bombings, hostage crisis and a flareup of fighting between
the army and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a bigger
separatist group, have posed the biggest security challenge to
President Joseph Estrada in his two years in office.

Abu Sayyaf leader Galib Andang last week told Filipino and
German reporters his group was backed by Saudi guerrilla suspect
Osama bin Laden, one of the United States' most wanted men.

Bin Laden is accused of masterminding the August 1998 bombings
of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania which killed more than
200 people. He is currently hiding in Afghanistan.

Government negotiators on Monday dangled offers of economic
aid to the Abu Sayyaf separatists for the freedom of their 21
hostages, who renewed threats of suicide.

Negotiations between the government panel and the rebels were
expected to resume on Wednesday in the rebels' stronghold on
Jolo, 960 km south of Manila.

The government panel said the rebels had not yet demanded a
ransom, but that judging from past kidnappings by the group, it
was possible they might soon raise the issue.

"I think it may crop up...but we may bargain for livelihood
assistance, infrastructure and other more durable forms of
assistance like scholarships for those who did not have the
benefit of education," presidential assistant secretary Farouk
Hussain, a member of the government team, told Reuters.

Newspapers said the Abu Sayyaf wanted US$1 million for each
hostage but the panel said it had not received such a demand.

The hostages, in an interview with a Philippine television
broadcast on Monday, repeated previous warnings they might be
driven to suicide if Manila did not win their freedom soon.

"If you ask them to stay six months more, everybody will be
dead because they (may have already) committed suicide," French
hostage Sonia Wendling said in the interview aired on Monday.

"The best thing is to hurry up everything."

The hostages -- nine Malaysians, three Germans, two French
nationals, two South Africans, two Finns, two Filipinos and a
Lebanese -- were abducted from a tourist resort on April 23.

A doctor allowed into the rebel camp to check on the hostages
recommended four be hospitalized.

Many of the hostages are suffering from a range of complaints,
including depression and infections.

The security headaches confronting Estrada come amid signs the
economy is running out of steam, although Finance Secretary Jose
Pardo said on Monday he was confident the economy could still
grow about 4 percent.

"We are keeping the 4 percent GDP target," he said.

Official data released last week showed the economy grew 3.4
percent in the first quarter, year-on-year, down from 4.9 percent
in the final quarter of 1999.

The government said annual inflation rose to 4.1 percent in
May from 3.7 percent in April, in line with market expectations,
but the worst result since 4.3 percent in December.