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Saturday, September 25, 2004
MILF denies terror ties (5:00 p.m.)
COTABATO -- Muslim separatists waging a long running rebellion in the Philippines have assured Islamic bloc envoys they have no ties with Southeast Asia-based terrorists, foreign diplomats said Saturday.
The ambassadors from the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) member countries arrived under tight guard in this southern city to check on the progress of an autonomous Muslim government carved out of the Mindanao region under a 1996 peace pact between the Moro National Liberation (MNLF) and Manila.
The 12,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a splinter group now negotiating with the government, has been accused by regional intelligence agencies of protecting and training Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) militants.
But the envoys said MILF chief Murad Ebrahim denied the allegations and assured the OIC his group was committed to signing a peace deal with Manila and that it had no links with the JI, the Southeast Asian arm of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.
Libyan ambassador Salem Adam said the envoys met Murad at his jungle camp near this southern Philippine city two weeks ago.
"They are looking forward to achieving peace, a lasting and comprehensive agreement and a solution to this problem," Adam told reporters here.
He said Murad assured him that "the MILF has no connection to the JI, and that they are calling on the government for a joint inspection" of MILF camps that the goverment alleges has harbored JI militants in the past.
The same invitation has also been extended to the Australian government, which rejected it.
Experts have said that a Malaysian JI militant tagged behind the bombing outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta early this month had trained in bomb-making in MILF camps.
That attack killed nine people and left scores wounded. The JI was also blamed for the October 2002 bombings in Bali, Indonesia that left 202 people dead, mostly Australian tourists.
Members of a joint MILF-government committee are to visit a mountain region at the heart of Mindanao island in November, or after the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. (AFP)
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