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.