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Southeast Asia
We Want Peace to Prevail, Says Philippine Separatist Group
2005-03-25
An official of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) yesterday said the group is looking into a claim by a suspected Jemaah Islamiyah member that he has helped train separatists in the southern Philippines. MILF spokesman Eid (Lipless Eddie) Kabalu stressed that while the group has no ties with any terrorist group, its leaders want any doubt to be cleared. "We have no links whatsoever with the Jemaah Islamiyah or other terror groups, such as the Abu Sayyaf, and the MILF leadership has repeatedly warned its members not to harbor terrorists. But just the same the MILF ordered an investigation into the allegations," Kabalu said yesterday in a phone interview from his base in Central Mindanao.

Earlier this week, an Indonesian man whom the military arrested in the southern province of Maguindanao on terrorism charges, allegedly confessed to his interrogators that he and several other Jemaah Islamiyah members were helping local guerrillas in their war for a separate Islamic state in Mindanao. Rohmat, who is also known as Zacky, admitted that MILF forces provided him sanctuary in Central Mindanao before his arrest on March 16 at a checkpoint in Datu Saudi Ampatuan town in Maguindanao province, a stronghold of the separatist group. He said he entered the Philippines in year 2000 and trained MILF rebels in Camp Abubakar As-Siddique in Maguindanao and later Abu Sayyaf militants in making bombs and how to use cell phones to trigger explosions. Rohmat said Filipino terror groups are plotting to attack civilian targets across the country. Rohmat in a brief interview with reporters Wednesday, said the Abu Sayyaf was plotting major attacks in the southern cities of Davao and Cagayan de Oro and also in Manila.
Posted by:Fred

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