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| Southeast Asia |
| Mindanao training camps back on the radar |
| 2005-10-05 |
| As Southeast Asia pondered its security after the second deadly terrorist blow to Indonesia's Bali resort island, nagging concerns surfaced again over whether the southern Philippines has become the region's breeding ground for radicals. After most of al-Qaida network's camps in Afghanistan were taken out by U.S. led forces in late 2001, the Mindanao region has become a key training area for Southeast Asian militants, including those blamed for the first Bali carnage three years ago that killed 202 people, according to security officials and confidential documents. Malaysian fugitives Azahari bin Husin and Noordin Mohamed Top, who Indonesian police say may have masterminded Saturday's suicide bombings in Bali, are believed to have trained or once taken refuge in Mindanao, a vast tropical sprawl with largely unguarded jungle-clad islands, mountains and marshes. Muslim separatist guerrillas hold sway in far-flung villages. Police officials planned to show pictures of the recovered heads of three suspected suicide bombers to captured Jemaah Islamiyah militants to check if last weekend's attackers belonged to the al-Qaida-linked group or if they trained in Mindanao, an almost automatic suspicion that's not without basis. In a sarcastic editorial cartoon on Tuesday, the widely circulated Philippine Star newspaper featured an Islamic militant holding two lit bombs and wearing a shirt labeled "Bali bomber" and a button that read "proudly RP-trained." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 maybe now the rest of Asia and the Phil government will pull their heads out and do something about this. They know where the camps are but because they are in the MNLF and MILF areas they are afraid to bust the peace accords. Time as always to see action and not just talk. |
| Posted by: 49 pan 2005-10-05 09:41 |