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Thursday, September 23, 2004
Philippine team to visit alleged JI training camps, Australia begs off (4:13 p.m.)
MANILA -- Ceasefire monitors are to visit Muslim separatist camps in the southern Philippines to investigate allegations that Islamic militants are training there, the government announced Thursday as Australia rejected an offer to join the inspection.
US, Australian, and Filipino intelligence suggests the Al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror network trained foreign and local members on bomb-making in an area controlled by Filipino Muslim rebels on Mindanao island.
A joint team of government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) ceasefire monitors met Thursday to finalize plans for the visit to the Mount Cararao camp, a joint statement said.
The largest separatist Muslim group on Mindanao, MILF signed a ceasefire with Manila 14 months ago. The 12,000-member rebel group has denied allegations of its ties with JI.
The Mount Cararao visit will be made "at a date after the Ramadan to be agreed upon later on," the joint committee said in a statement after the meeting in the Mindanao port of General Santos.
Muslims all over the world will observe the fasting month of Ramadan between October 16 and November 13.
Earlier Thursday, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer rejected an MILF offer to send monitors to MILF training camps and disprove accusations the separatists have sheltered JI members.
Downer said he did not think the offer was genuine and that taking it up was unlikely to be helpful.
"It's hardly likely to be fruitful because they will show us what they want to show us," Downer told reporters in the northern city of Darwin.
"I think we will depend much more on the reliable sources we have about what's happening in these camps when we are not actually around there."
Downer repeated claims that JI, blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings and the bombing of Australia's Jakarta embassy earlier this month, had trained at bases in the southern Philippines.
"That is a matter of great concern to us and it is a matter of great concern to the Philippines, Indonesian and Malaysian governments and of course the Americans as well, and we are working on this."
In a separate statement, President Gloria Arroyo's spokesman on Thursday expressed confidence that the MILF had cut all ties to JI as part of the peace negotiations.
Spokesman Ignacio Bunye also dismissed news reports that the MILF were still allowing JI members to train in their Mindanao camps, calling them "an old story".
"The government is on top of the terrorist threat and we are confident in the commitment of the MILF leadership to help in the anti-terrorism campaign," Bunye said.
The MILF has been waging a separatist struggle for an independent Muslim state in the southern Philippines for decades. The area also shelters another rebel movement, the Abu Sayyaf, which has been linked to al-Qaeda and has undertaken a series of kidnappings of western targets.
JI's goal is to create a fundamentalist Islamic state in Southeast Asia, encompassing Indonesia, Malaysia and parts of the Philippines and southern Thailand. (AFP) |
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