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Experts sez JI leaders trained at MILF camps
Top leaders of an al-Qaida-linked group accused in Asia's worst terror attacks once taught or were trained at secret Philippine camps - which are still active despite government claims they've been dismantled - a U.S. security analyst said Thursday.The camps still produce would-be attackers, allowing Jemaah Islamiyah to survive arrests and crackdowns, said American terror expert Prof. Zachary Abuza, director of Asian Studies at Simmons College in Boston, Mass. Most of the camps are in remote southern strongholds of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which has repeatedly denied any Jemaah Islamiyah links and pledged to help authorities hunt down foreign terrorists, according to Abuza. The Philippines government acknowledges that suspected foreign militants used to train in southern camps, but maintains that troops have dismantled them. "There, unfortunately, have been people who'd come out of these camps who have been involved in either attacks or in key leadership position in the JI organization," Abuza told Associated Press Television News. "They need these training camps," he said. "JI simply cannot continue to sustain the organization without their members getting such training" in Islamic indoctrination, intelligence-gathering, military skills and bomb making. Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-09-30 |
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