MANILA - A suspected rebel commander told investigators that the regional extremist group Jemaah Islamiah helped Philippine rebels carry out a series of deadly bombings in Manila that killed 22 people in 2000. The chiefs of the Philippines' anti-terror police said the disclosure proves links between the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Jemaah Islamiah. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front has consistently said it condemns terrorism and denies links to Jemaah Islamiah. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and police officials presented the alleged MILF commander, Saifulla Yunos [aka Muklis Yunos and probably several dozen others], at a press conference at a press conference in Manila on Monday. Handcuffed and dressed in an orange prison shirt, Yunos stared blankly and was not allowed to talk.
Yunos, who uses the alias Mukhlis and allegedly heads the MILF's special operations group, was arrested May 25 with an Egyptian man at southern Cagayan de Oro airport. Based on interrogations of Yunos and Fathur Roman al Ghozi — an Indonesian convicted last year for possessing explosives and suspected of being a Jemaah Islamiah leader — "there is a link between the Jemaah Islamiah and the MILF," said Philippine police intelligence director Chief Supt. Jesus Verzosa. Yunos and al Ghozi plotted bombings on Dec. 30, 2000, that killed 22 people and injured more than 100 people in Manila with funding from Jemaah Islamiah. The bombings were retaliation for a military offensive that led to the capture of more than 40 MILF camps in the southern Philippines earlier that year, Verzosa said. A police intelligence dossier described Yunos as "a fanatic of the extreme Islamic fundamentalist movement" who received training in explosives in an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan. Authorities in the United States, Australia and Singapore have submitted questions to be asked during the ongoing interrogation of Yunos in the Philippines.
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