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Friday, April 02, 2004
4 Turks held in RP for alleged JI links
COTABATO -- Four Arabic teachers from Turkey have been arrested in Cotabato City for alleged ties with the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) regional terror network, officials said Thursday.
A highly classified military report also warned members of the Regional Disaster Coordinating Council in Koronadal City of the JI plan to bomb key cities in central Mindanao.
The Bureau of Immigration (B.I.) said Thursday that it has arrested in Cotabato City four Arabic teachers from Turkey on suspicion of having ties with the Jema'ah Islamiah (JI) regional terror network.
The Turks, identified by their employer as Istanbul natives Ismael Kocabiyik, Alpaslan Gul, Ahmed Kaya, and Mansour Omercikoglu, were detained by Immigration Bureau agents late Wednesday in this southern city, Cotabato Mayor Muslimin Sema told AFP.
Earlier, one of their wives told police that men in uniform claiming they were immigration agents abducted them.
The four, aged between 29 and 34, are Arabic instructors at the Eeman Institute, a private school owned by a Cotabato-based government official, Zamzamin Ampatuan.
Not true
Ampatuan, the executive director of President Arroyo's Office of Muslim Affairs, said immigration agents showed up at the school with arrest warrants authorizing the detention of the four for "alleged links with the JI."
Ampatuan rejected the charge.
"That is not true. These people are peace-loving educators who have been helping us run our educational institute," he said.
A spokesman for the Turkish embassy in Manila said he had no details of the arrests except what he had heard from media reports.
He said the government had not contacted the embassy.
Ampatuan said all four board at his house with their Filipino wives.
Security officials have said they are monitoring the activities of certain foreign Islamic missionaries who they fear could be helping recruit members to Islamic militant groups such as Al-Qaeda or the JI, a Southeast Asia-based network blamed for the Bali blasts that killed 202 people in 2002.
Bombs
In Koronadal City, Lt. Col. Franklin del Prado, 6th Infantry Division assistant chief of staff, confirmed that JI operatives are in central Mindanao and are waiting for the right time to strike at public places in the region.
"JI operatives are planning to conduct bombings and sabotage [operations] in the cities of General Santos and Koronadal, like public markets, bus terminals and churches," del Prado said, reading from a folder boldly marked "Secret."
In April 2002, General Santos was the site of a powerful bombing that killed 15 people and wounded 63 others, while this city was hit by four separate bomb attacks last year, killing 13 people and wounding at least 70 others.
Del Prado's revelation shrouded the conference room in silence, where some 50 people gathered for the first joint meeting of the Regional Disaster Coordinating Council-Central Mindanao and Provincial Disaster Coordinating Council of South Cotabato province.
The military official said the JI operatives already in Mindanao have made Cotabato City their base of operation, with a certain Zulkipli allegedly calling the shots from there.
Del Prado stressed that the JI is "just lying low for quite sometime"; apparently owing to the arrest of Taufik Refqui, who was arrested last Oct. 3 in Cotabato City.
Refqui, an Indonesian who was arrested by the Police Anti-Crime Emergency Response team, had earlier claimed that JI recruits are training within areas controlled by the Moro rebels.
Authorities tagged Refqui as the second ranking JI leader in the Philippines, next to slain terrorist Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi, who was killed last October in Pigkawayan, North Cotabato, reportedly after shooting it out with law enforcers.
Del Prado said the operation of JI agents in the area was also hampered by the arrest of an alleged financier, a certain Jaybe Ofracio, last January in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Ofracio was arrested on charges that he has been laundering funds for the JI operating in Northern Ireland.
Reports said the Irish police have been closely monitoring Ofracio's activities in Northern Ireland for the past two years before his arrest.
Del Prado alleged that evidences seized from the house of Ofracio's wife in Cotabato City pointed to the suspect's apparent link with the JI.
In spite of their "hibernation," the JI elements, del Prado told the RDCC participants, remain a vital threat to the stability of the region, based on information gathered lately by the military intelligence community.
The military official also repeated previous government pronouncements that the MILF, the largest Moro rebel group in Southern Philippines, is allegedly giving protection to the JI operatives in Mindanao.
He said JI elements trained in Camp Abubakar, then the largest camp of the MILF, before it fell on the hands of the government in the 2000 all-out-war ordered by the deposed President Estrada.
Bomb package
In another report, the General Santos City Police Office (GSCPO) bomb disposal unit on Thursday said the suspicious package found at the General Santos public market Wednesday morning did not contain any explosive component.
Children alerted the police Wednesday after they found the package abandoned at the parking lot of the west side section of the public market.
The GSCPO bomb disposal unit immediately went to the area to check the reported suspicious object.
Police initially found batteries, plastic materials tied with electrical tape, and a powder substance inside a plastic bag.
Senior Insp. Jomar Yap, city police bomb disposal unit chief, earlier said they would subject the "object" to a test to determine if it contains explosive materials, which later turned out negative.
Yap said while the incident was a false alarm, they still considered it as a bomb threat, but did not say which group is responsible for it.
Police have detained six alleged Abu Sayyaf operatives in Manila and confiscated explosives and bomb-making equipment.
President Gloria Arroyo said the police operations had "preempted a Madrid-level attack on the metropolis".
US apology
Meanwhile, the US State Department and the US National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) have formally apologized to the Philippines for the "erroneous survey question" which portrayed the Philippines as among the countries allegedly harboring terrorists.
NRCC representative Tom Reynolds extended the apology through Philippine Ambassador to Washington Alberto del Rosario, adding that he assumes responsibility for the mistake.
Reynolds promised to undertake measures to rectify the mistake.
"Reynolds also said the US Government deeply appreciated what the Philippines has been doing in the war against terrorism. The State Department also issued a separate public statement and they reiterated the US government's appreciation for the Philippines' strong and unwavering support to the US-led global war against terrorism," Bunye said.
On the United Kingdom's continued issuance of travel warnings to the Philippines, Bunye said the Philippines is already getting used to travel advisories "which do not really take into consideration the security precautions that we're undertaking." JMR, Bobby S. Terencio and Bong S. Sarmiento of Sun.Star General Santos/AFP)
(April 2, 2004 issue)
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