Manila, Philippines – The latest deadly terrorist strike on the Indonesian resort island of Bali has revived concerns that the Philippines has become Southeast Asia’s breeding ground for al-Qaeda-linked extremists who have set up training camps there.
Two Malaysian fugitives suspected of planning Saturday’s suicide bombings as well as the Bali nightclub attacks of 2002 are believed to have trained or once taken refuge in the Philippines’ southern Mindanao region, according to Indonesian and Malaysian police.
The two have been tied to the al-Qaeda-linked terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, also blamed for the Bali attacks three years ago that killed 202 people, mostly foreigners.
Since U.S.-led forces took out most of al-Qaeda’s camps in Afghanistan in late 2001, Mindanao has become a key training area for Southeast Asian militants. The tropical region is a vast jungle sprawl of largely unguarded islands, mountains and marshes where Muslim separatist guerrillas hold sway in far-flung villages.
An editorial cartoon published Tuesday in the widely circulated Philippine Star newspaper featured an Islamic militant holding two lit bombs and wearing a shirt labeled “Bali bomber” and a button that read “proudly RP-trained.” RP is shorthand for Republic of the Philippines.
With militant concerns on the rise, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo called Wed nes day for Congress to swiftly pass a tough anti-terrorism law that would, among other things, allow longer detention of suspects for interrogation.
Indonesia’s top anti-terrorism official has identified two Malaysian fugitives – Azahari bin Husin and Noordin Mohamed Top – as the suspected plotters of Saturday night’s attacks on three crowded Bali tourist resort restaurants. The attacks killed 22 people and the three bombers. The two wanted men were not among the suicide attackers.
Jemaah Islamiyah, which wants to establish a hard-line Islamic state across Southeast Asia, is also suspected in at least two other bombings in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta – one outside the Australian Embassy in 2004, which killed 10 people, and the other at the J.W. Marriott hotel in 2003, which killed at least 22.
Philippine police plan to show photographs of the heads of the three suspected suicide bombers to captured Jemaah Islamiyah militants, hoping to learn whether the attackers belonged to the group or had trained in Mindanao.
Jemaah Islamiyah, although battered by arrests of key leaders and members, appears to have adapted to Southeast Asia’s crackdown by linking up with other regional militant groups or individuals.
Since the group established camps in mid-1998 in Mindanao territory controlled by the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front, at least three batches of recruits, each containing 17-18 Indonesians, have completed 18-month-long courses in making bombs, combat skills, weapons handling and concepts of holy war, according to a confidential report in August by the Philippines National Security Council and intelligence officials.
There were shorter courses for recruits from Malaysia and Singapore “who because of their work (some are civil servants) could not be absent for long periods of time,” said the report.
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which has been fighting for a Muslim homeland in the southern Philippines for decades and is now in peace talks with the government, has denied links with terror groups.
