By Xinhua Writer Xu Lingui
MANILA, July 25 (Xinhua) -- Filipino Muslim militants sheltered them, fed them and helped them evade government troops when they first reached Philippine shores across the Sulawesi Sea. In return, they trained locals to make powerful bombs designed to sow terror.
That's how a handful of fugitive bombers of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an Indonesia-headquartered militant group with close ties with the Al Qaeda network, took roots and slowly regained clout in the insurgency-infested southern Philippines, officials and analysts said.
But this interaction has apparently entered another level with JI operatives expanding their network and trying to forge an alliance with small groups of local extremists struggling for survival, said Rodolfo "Boogie" Mendoza, a top Filipino counter-terrorism researcher.
"The terrorist threat is real and serious," Mendoza told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.
He said around ten Indonesian bombers arrived late last year, bringing the total number of JI operatives hiding in the jungles of southern Philippines to 40, headed by a certain Indonesian national Usman Riesal and two prime suspects in the deadly bombings in Indonesia's tourist island of Bali in 2002.
"But more importantly there are also Filipinos being recruited, and things become complicated," said Mendoza, who retired from the police force last year with nearly 20 years of experience in terrorist investigation.
Aiming to spread its network across the Southeast Asia, JI has set its foot on the Philippine soils as early as 1997 and is believed to have instructed Filipino Muslim militants into setting off five bombs in Manila on Dec. 22, 2002, killing 22 people.
Founded by Islamic extremists in Indonesia in the early 1990s, JI is now seen able to infiltrate into the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia to cooperate with local militants.
A string of explosions rocked southern Philippines in the past three weeks, killing 12 people and injuring over 100 others. While in Indonesia's capital of Jakarta, suicide bombers attacked two posh Western hotels on July 17, leaving nine dead and 61 wounded.
National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales on Thursday told Manila-based foreign reporters that these blasts, all bearing highly-suspected JI characters, seem to be connected.
"It is not about who made it (the bombing), what is important now is to know what is behind it," Gonzales said, warning that JI resurgence in the region can not be ignored.
Mendoza said the hotel blasts in Jakarta could be duplicated in the Philippine capital of Metro Manila and it would not be surprising if the first Filipino suicide bomber would soon emerge.
"JI operatives will inspire them, induce them and set an example for them," he said.
Tausugs, the ethnic minority in the Sulu archipelago, have the tradition to stage suicide attacks once they feel cornered, as demonstrated during the American occupation of Sulu in the early 20th century, when Tausug warriors attacked Americans in a suicide fashion, Mendoza said.
That tradition, combined with JI bombers' inducement, will give birth to Filipino suicide bombers, he added.
"Twenty years ago, no one would imagine an Iraqi suicide bomber. Terrorism simply breaks all rules."
On July 8, a car bomb was detonated in southern Philippine city of Iligan, leaving 16 injured. Senator Rodolfo Biazon, a former Armed Forces Chief of Staff, said the emerge of car bomb in the Philippines should ring the alarm bell.
He told local media that Filipino militants might have adopted that tactic from JI and if the blast was proved a "test mission",serious attacks are looming.
JI openly has collaborated with the Philippines' smallest but most dangerous militant group the Abu Sayyaf. The group, composed of mainly Tausug guerrillas, was blacklisted by Washington for a series of terrorist attacks in the past decade.
The U.S.-backed military offensives have killed and captured key Abu Sayyaf leaders in the past few years and reduced the group's size from thousands to just over 300 in the southern islands of Sulu and Basilan, army officials said.
But Gonzales said the military is faced with difficulties to finish off the though severely-fraction group soon because of its linkage to JI.
Mendoza said police intelligence have noticed a swing of terrorist hotbed from southern islands to central Mindanao, where most JI fugitives are hiding. The Basilan-based Abu Sayyaf commander Isnilon Hapilon, with his 20 loyal followers, visited central Mindanao more often recently, Mendoza said, citing intelligence reports.
"Even if the Abu Sayyaf is crushed in southern islands, some will escape to central Mindanao to form another terrorist network," he said.
Mendoza said Manila needs to revamp its counter-terrorism strategy to focus on destroying terrorist network than on neutralizing key militant leaders. And without an overall economic development package to go with the military offensives, threats of terrorism would never ebb in Muslim Mindanao, a resources-rich but sadly the most undeveloped region in the Philippines.
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