RP nabs another Indonesian JI bomber

RP nabs another Indonesian JI bomber

Agencies, Manila/Kuala Lumpur

Philippine security forces said on Tuesday they arrested a man,
believed to be Indonesian, suspected of being a bomb expert for
regional Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) militants who trained local Moro
rebels for a deadly attack in Manila last month.

News of the arrest on March 16 came as soldiers and police
were on full alert with Filipinos praying, shopping and traveling
in their millions during this week's observance of Easter in the
mainly Roman Catholic country.

Police have warned of fresh plots to bomb Manila after Abu
Sayyaf, a group linked to al-Qaeda and JI, vowed revenge for
comrades killed by security forces after a prison uprising.

The suspect -- identified as Rohmat with the aliases "Zaki",
"Hamdan" and "Akil" -- was arrested on a bombing-related warrant
at an army checkpoint in Datu Saudi Ampatuan town on the southern
island of Mindanao, the military said in a statement.

"He is a big fish," army spokesman Lt. Col. Buenaventura
Pascual told Reuters. "He was responsible for training the people
involved in the Makati attack."

Pascual said Rohmat heard mobile phone calls by Abu Sayyaf
leaders Khaddafy Janjalani and Abu Solaiman ordering coordinated
blasts in Manila's Makati business district and two southern
cities on Feb. 14 that killed 13 people and wounded 150.

Abu Sayyaf, the smallest of several Moro rebel groups in the
southern Philippines, was known mainly for kidnappings until it
planted a bomb on a ferry in February 2004. The country's worst
terror attack killed at least 116 people.

Rohmat, who has yet to be charged over the Valentine's Day
bombings and with immigration offenses after entering the
Philippines illegally in January 2000, was described as "the JI
liaison officer" to Abu Sayyaf.

JI is blamed for several attacks in the region, including the
Bali bombings in October 2002 that killed 202 people.

"We are not saying that with the arrest of Zaki that the
threat of terrorism is gone," Lt. Gen. Edilberto Adan, the
military's deputy chief of staff, told reporters after the
alleged bomb expert was paraded for the media.

"But we have dealt a big blow to their organization."

A Filipino arrested with Rohmat was later released, while two
other suspects escaped the army checkpoint on a motorcycle.

Pascual said Rohmat trained Abu Sayyaf members in explosives
at a JI enclave inside a camp on Mindanao run by the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front (MILF), the largest Muslim rebel group with
about 12,000 fighters.

The MILF, which is due to restart peace talks hosted by
Malaysia, insists it has cut all ties with foreign militants and
has shunned calls from Abu Sayyaf leaders to rejoin the war for
an Islamic state in the southern Philippines.

But security analysts say connections between members of JI,
Abu Sayyaf and the MILF can be very informal and personal.

In Kuala Lumpur, a former university lecturer who was
suspected of a role in the 2002 Bali bombings has been released
from detention in Malaysia, an official said on Tuesday. Wan Min
Wan Mat, 45, had been in detention since September 2002.

He testified in a written statement read out by prosecutors at
the trial in Indonesia of one of the Bali bombing suspects in
2003. At the time, Wan Min was accused by Indonesian police of
being a mastermind of the attack on Bali nightspots in which most
of the 202 victims were western tourists.

Wan Min denied specific knowledge of the attack, but admitted
in his statement that he had sent US$30,500 in three installments
to a senior member of the JI extremist group to finance
"operations in Indonesia as previously planned" in Bangkok.

He said he believed the Bali bombers were inspired by an edict
issued by al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and the attack was
intended as a "warning for foreigners -- Americans and
Australians who are setting their feet in Bali and who are
infidels and enemies of Islam."

Wan Min will be restricted to the town of Kota Baru, capital
of Malaysia's northern Kelantan state, and must report daily to
police, officials said.

"There is evidence that he is no longer a threat to national
security but police are monitoring his movements," a government
source told AFP.

Also freed Monday after two years in detention were five
students who allegedly trained in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a
new generation of leaders of JI, officials said.

The students were detained in September 2003 after being
arrested and deported by authorities in Pakistan, where they were
studying at an Islamic school.