RP rejects image as haven for terrorists

RP rejects image as haven for terrorists

MANILA (AFP): The Philippines on Wednesday bristled at its
portrayal in the Western press as a haven for international
terrorists with links to Osama bin Laden, the main suspect in
last week's terror attacks in the United States.

"The image projected by some quarters that the Philippines is
a haven for international terrorists, especially those linked to
Osama bin Laden, is inaccurate," said President Gloria Arroyo's
spokesman, Rigoberto Tiglao.

He conceded that the Saudi dissident had trained local Islamic
guerrillas in the 1990s.

Tiglao said intelligence reports indicate that Ramzi Yousef,
later convicted in the United States for the 1993 bombing of the
World Trade Center, "has trained a group of Abu Sayyaf members in
the preparation and use of explosives."

However, "since the first half of 1990 and particularly since
the neutralization of Yousef's cell in 1995, there have been no
reports nor any intelligence information that international
terrorist cells, especially those linked to bin Laden, have been
able to use Manila as a base."

Bin Laden in the early 1990s cut off links with the Abu Sayyaf
"after assessing that the group was a mercenary one incapable of
undertaking global terrorism."

Intelligence reports had indicated that a Muslim foundation
called the International Islamic Relief Organization had given
funds to the Abu Sayyaf and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)
guerrillas operating in the south in the late 1980s to the mid-
1990s, Tiglao said.

The relief organization was linked to a brother-in-law of bin
Laden, although it has not been established whether the money it
gave the Filipino groups were used to purchase arms, he said.

In 1995, one of the suspects in the World Trade Center
bombing, Abdul Hakim Murad, was arrested in the Philippines and
extradited to the US. Murad and Yousef were later convicted for
the bombing that left six people dead.

Meanwhile neighboring Malaysia said on Wednesday it was
awaiting further details on a Philippines proposal to create a
regional anti-terrorist coalition.

Ahmad Fuzi Abdul Razak, secretary-general of the Malaysian
foreign ministry, told AFP he had not received "anything
officially from Manila."

Manila on Tuesday said it would initiate the creation of a
regional anti-terrorist coalition to support a looming U.S.
retaliation against attackers that partly destroyed the Pentagon
and reduced the World Trade Center towers into rubble last week.

President Arroyo met with congressional leaders and her
cabinet to draw up a specific response to the U.S. global war on
terrorism.

Arroyo, in the meeting, backed a proposal by House Speaker
Jose de Venecia to "immediately initiate the organization of a
regional anti-terrorist coalition consisting of the Philippines,
Malaysia and Indonesia," presidential spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao
said.

The three Southeast Asian neighbors are themselves facing
their own Muslim separatist problems.

In another development, foreign donors told the Philippine
government at a meeting on Wednesday that they were willing to
help rebuild the rebellion-torn southern region of Mindanao, but
that the situation was still unstable, a joint statement said.

Foreign donors suspended about $700 million in aid commitments
to the region last year after a serious flareup in the Moro
Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) insurgency and an outbreak of
kidnappings by the Abu Sayyaf rebel group.