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A split in Jemaah Islamiyah?
 A serious split in the Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah is leading breakaway factions and other militant outfits to establish training camps in the southern Philippines, an analyst said Thursday. Differences over whether to attack Western targets has caused rifts in Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah, driving some militants - with or without affiliation to JI - to operate independently of the region's biggest terrorist organization, said Sidney Jones, a leading expert on Islamic radical organizations with the Belgium-based International Crisis Group. The "serious disarray" in JI not only raises "the possibility that individuals in JI may decide to go off on their own without reference to the central command structure, but that they can pull together the foot soldiers required in an ad hoc fashion," to stage attacks, Jones told reporters in Manila. She said Indonesian radical groups have established bases in the southern Philippines including the Banten group of West Java, which was believed to be involved in the Oct. 2002 Bali bombings and last year's blast outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, Jones said. Another small Indonesian outfit established links in 2003 with Abu Sayyaf extremists in the southern Philippines, while a third operated a camp in territory held by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the Philippines' main Muslim rebel group, she said. "The shift from a dominant organization - JI - and a single military academy to this array of much smaller groups and ad hoc arrangements ... also seems to mean that the Indonesians who are here are more likely to undertake operations alongside their hosts than was the case with JI," she told reporters. A JI member arrested in Sabah, Malaysia, in December 2003 said the Abu Sayyaf asked him to conduct training in infantry tactics in the southern Philippines, Jones said, adding that about five top JI fugitives are probably still hiding in the country. Police Intelligence Director Roberto Delfin said authorities know only that Jemaah Islamiyah has camps in the southern Philippines but called reports of camps by other foreign militant groups mere "speculation." Posted by: Seafarious 2005-01-14 |
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