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Friday, March 12, 2004
RP fears major terror attack, seeks neighbors' help (2:15 p.m.)
MANILA -- President Arroyo fears a major terrorist attack may be imminent in the Philippines and has asked neighbors for information to help her fight the threat, a top security adviser said Friday.
National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales said the attack would likely come from Muslim militants, blamed for bombings at an airport and a port in the city of Davao early last year that killed 38 people.
There have been no other major terrorist actions in the country since then, but Gonzales said a fresh wave of deadly attacks in other countries suggest that "we have to be far more vigilant."
A number of western governments have issued a spate of travel advisories in recent days, warning their citizens of potential terrorist action in the largely Roman Catholic Southeast Asian nation.
Gonzales said Manila has quietly stepped up security at seaports and airports ahead of the dry season months of March and May, when travel will be at its peak.
"The targets are civilian, the targets are tourists. We are putting safety measures in all seaports and airports," he told a Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines forum.
He said Manila was sending a police mission to Malaysia to interrogate suspected Indonesian militants recently arrested after allegedly completing training at a camp supposedly run by Filipino Muslim rebels on the southern island of Mindanao.
The government also plans to ask Jakarta to allow it to interrogate certain detained militants, Gonzales added.
Arroyo is also set to hold peace talks with the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Malaysia next month with the aim of denying foreign militants access to alleged MILF training camps on Mindanao, the theater of a decades-old Muslim separatist rebellion.
Gonzales said Manila was aware that a MILF faction led by guerrillas trained in Afghanistan could be sheltering foreign militants.
He said the government was also tackling an effort by militants to "subvert" Islamic schools and was tracking activities of Middle Eastern Islamic missionaries on Mindanao who could be propagating extremist teachings or financing anti-government activity. (AFP) |
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