RP mounts major operation to recapture JI militant

RP mounts major operation to recapture JI militant

Agencies, Manila

Police mounted a major operation in the southern Philippines on
Friday to recapture fugitive Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) militant
Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, who escaped last week, military sources
and reports said.

Operations were focussed on the port of General Santos on
Mindanao island, military sources in Manila and in Mindanao told
AFP.

ABS-CBN television reported that national police chief
Hermogenes Ebdane was personally directing the operation from
General Santos.

Meanwhile, police on Friday asked the ombudsman to file
charges against seven jailers of al-Ghozi, an Indonesian who
escaped last week from a national police prison in Manila where
he was serving a 17-year jail term for illegally procuring more
than a tonne of explosives.

The police complaint accused the seven, including
superintendents Reuben Galban, Carlito Natanauan and Guillermo
Danipog, of graft for "causing undue injury to the government
through gross inexcusable negligence."

After he was sentenced, Al-Ghozi had confessed that he used
some of the explosives to blow up a Manila rail coach in December
2000 in an attack that claimed 22 lives.

He also said he planned to use the rest to blow up Western
embassies in Singapore.

Al-Ghozi's escape has embarrassed President Gloria Arroyo's
government, a key supporter of the U.S.-led war on international
terror.

Arroyo pledged on Friday that the fugitive, the most senior JI
member to have been in custody in Southeast Asia, would be
recaptured.

"The threat of Al-Ghozi is real and we will hunt him down
until he is accounted for," she said in a statement.

"The Filipino people and our international allies are on the
lookout and he will be caught in the dragnet one way or the
other."

Arroyo on Friday rejected international perception that the
country was "generally unsafe" after the escape of Al-Ghozi from
police headquarters.

While admitting that the escape last week of convicted
Indonesian terrorist Al-Ghozi has renewed the threat of terrorism
in the Philippines, Arroyo stressed that the government was
exhausting all efforts to recapture the fugitive.

Arroyo said that due to Al-Ghozi's escape, "there is a
perception of instability in our country" that has prompted
several foreign governments to issue new travel advisories
covering the entire Philippines.

But she stressed that "these perceptions are exaggerated and
they do not merit the judgment that our country is generally
unsafe".

Meanwhile, the Philippine army advised the public on Friday
not to be alarmed by troop movements in Manila before a key
presidential speech as rumors swirled of a brewing coup by
disgruntled junior officers.

The unusual statement came as Arroyo sought to play down
concerns that a group of soldiers was seeking broader support
within the 113,000-strong military for a plot to oust her
government.

Arroyo, who is due to give a state of the nation address on
Monday detailing her achievements and future policies, has urged
the public to stay calm in a country where rumors and conspiracy
theories are the order of the day.