Police on Thursday launched a manhunt for three suspects in an alleged plot to conduct bomb attacks in Metro Manila this Holy Week. ABS-CBN News Channel reported that authorities have linked the three to the bomb cache found in Quezon City Wednesday. The Central Police District has released sketches of two of the three suspected terrorists believed to have procured the bombs seized from a house in West Fairview Investigators identified the suspects as Jimmy Rivera and a certain Jim. The two were last seen on March 21. Authorities said they are tracking down a third suspect.On Wednesday the military said it has foiled a plot by the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group to bomb "soft targets" in Manila during the Lenten break. Security forces are on full alert as tens of millions of Filipinos pray, shop and travel during one of the biggest annual holidays in the country. The military said it had foiled "a major plan" by Abu Sayyaf rebels to attack the capital of 12 million people by arresting the suspect, a convert to Islam identified as Tyron Santos, in Quezon City on Tuesday. Santos led soldiers to 10 sacks of explosives and 18 improvised bombs at an abandoned house, it said in a statement. A computer, video camera and several tapes were also seized. "The explosives belonged to the ASG (Abu Sayyaf Group) and were intended for the Lenten season bombing," Lieutenant-Colonel Buenaventura Pascual, the Army spokesman, told reporters.
Police have warned of fresh plots to attack Manila after Abu Sayyaf vowed revenge for comrades killed this month by security forces after a jail uprising. On Tuesday, the military paraded an Indonesian suspected of being a JI bomb expert who trained Abu Sayyaf members for last month's blast in Makati. The Indonesian, identified as Rohmat, said on Wednesday Abu Sayyaf leaders Khaddafy Janjalani and Abu Sulaiman gave P100,000 to a member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) for attacks during the Holy Week. "I know some Abu Sayyaf so I heard that Khadaffy and Abu Sulaiman want to bomb Mindanao, either (the cities of) Davao or Cagayan de Oro, and also Manila in the last week of March," Rohmat told reporters. "The place was not mentioned, as long as there are lots of people. They did not say if it's a mall, terminal or what."
Rohmat said the MILF member was trained by Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, an Indonesian bomb-maker for JI who was killed at a checkpoint in Mindanao in 2003 after escaping from National Police headquarters in Camp Crame. Rohmat said money for the attacks was coming from Indonesia and being arranged by Usman -- an Indonesian previously named by Philippine security forces as the leader of the JI cell in Mindanao. The MILF, due to resume peace talks hosted by Malaysia, insists it has cut all ties with foreign militants and has shunned calls from Abu Sayyaf leaders to rejoin the fight for an Islamic state in Mindanao. But security analysts said links between members of JI, Abu Sayyaf and the MILF can be informal and personal.