Al-Qaeda setting up cells in Luzon — Berroya

CLARK FIELD, Pampanga — Central Luzon police director Chief Superintendent Reynaldo Berroya reported to President Arroyo yesterday that Osama bin Laden’s counterpart in Southeast Asia has been establishing terrorist cells in various parts of Luzon through a movement called Jemaah Islamiah (JI) which reportedly has linked up with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Berroya made this disclosure when he presented to Mrs. Arroyo nine Muslim converts turned terrorists who were arrested in operations he has been leading in Anda, Pangasinan since Thursday.

Berroya said that the JI, founded by Riduan Isamuddi, alias Alghosi Fais or Hambali, had planned to launch terrorist activities in Central Luzon and Metro Manila. Plans to carry out such activities last Labor Day were foiled with the capture of the nine suspected mujahedeens of the extremist Muslim group, he added.

Isamuddin, better known in the intelligence community in the United States as Hambali, is a 36-year-old Muslim cleric who is wanted in the US and four Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines, where he has been tagged as the mastermind of Asian terrorist operations of Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network and the "guiding force" for the past decades behind most of the major acts of terrorism in Asia.    

An organizational chart presented by Berroya to the President showed that JI has under it a special operations group of the third division of the Bangsa Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF) under Afghanistan-trained Mukhis Yunos, another special operations group of the Bangsa Islamic Security Forces under another Afghanistan-trained Abu Sadid, and the MILF under Aleen Mimbantas and Abdul Asis.

Hambali and fellow JI leader Abubakar Ba’asyir claim to be fighting for an Islamic "superstate" in Southeast Asia to be called Daulah Islamiah Raya incorporating Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, and parts of southern Thailand, Cambodia, and southern Philippines.

Berroya said that the police operations that led to a firefight between policemen and the suspected mujahedeens in Tarlac City on May 1 "pre-empted the occurrence of violence in Tarlac and unmasked a well-organized and highly compartmentalized terrorist network in Central Luzon and its environs."

Berroya said the arrest of the nine suspected terrorists also indicated that the "al-Qaeda network has (succeeded in developing) several cells not only in Region 3 but also in other parts of Luzon."

Armed Forces Northern Luzon Commander Maj. Gen. Rodolfo Garcia said that some of the members of JI are Christian converts to Islam who are undertaking a "Balik Muslim" campaign among Filipinos. "They insist that before Filipinos became Christians, they were Muslims and that is the reason for the term Balik Muslim," he said.

Garcia said that while there is yet no intelligence report on Hambali being in the country, it is "very possible that he might have slipped into the Philippines."

Police operations led by Berroya led to the arrest of six suspected mujahedeens in Pangasinan and two in Tarlac. The operations also led to the confiscation of voluminous documents, as well as a fake letter of President Arroyo to US President George Bush. The content of the letter was not disclosed.

"I am glad you caught the group responsible for the letter which is a fake. It has been circulating in Mindanao," the President told Berroya.

Police also seized from the suspected terrorists one 12-gauge shotgun, one caliber .22 magnum, six rifle grenades, five fragmentation grenades, one base radio, assorted ammunitions, one detonating cord, binoculars, and three sets of combat fatigue uniforms.

The police operations in Tarlac City led to the killing of suspected terrorist Khalid Amir (alias Khalid Trinidad) and the arrest of Omar Mayumo (alias Dexter Mayumo). It was Mayumo who revealed the existence of the shadowy extremist group called Haraka, which means"the movement."

In Pangasinan, the operation led to the arrest of Dawud del Rosario Santos, Pio Abogne de Vera alias Ismael de Vera, Marcelo Cenar Egil, Allan "Al Hakim" Barlagdaton, Redendo Cain Dellosa alias Habil Akmad Delllosa, and Angelito Trinidad alias Aris.

Some of the documents seized from the suspects are in Arabic and are now being translated by experts for possible information on terrorist activities planned by the JIL in Luzon.

Meanwhile, police and military agents are now hot on the trail of terror sleepers widely believed to have been deployed in various urban centers and awaiting orders from their leaders to launch terrorist activities.

Focus of the police anti-terror crackdown is the group headed by Akmad Santos, an alleged leader of the raided Madrasah (Islamic school) in Barangay Malong, Anda, Pangasinan Thursday evening.

Santos and the alleged financier and founder of the learning center, identified as Sheik Hamod, an Arab national, and their followers were not in the center when joint police and Army intelligence operatives swooped down on the place, following information that a group of terrorists were inside the center hatching a plot to avenge the killing and the arrest of their two colleagues in Tarlac City May 1.

The joint raid apprehended Santos’ brother Dawud and five other suspected members of the Muslim terror group and seized a cache of ammunitions and stacks of documents, including photographs, which police believe directly link the terrorist group to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Aside from the two suspected key terrorist leaders, police are casting their nets for a certain Ahmad Geraspuso, reportedly a ranking official of the Dawah Council of the Philippines, a Muslim group tasked to supervise the activities of the Islamic Students Call and Guidance (ISCAG), whose members are mostly Islamic fundamentalists.

Geraspuso is also believed to be responsible for the conversion of the Santos brothers, formerly Christians, to Islam. Police authorities are also verifying reports of Santos’ direct link to al-Qaeda.

Police have yet to release the number and identities of the persons rounded up in the dawn raid of the suspected terrorist training camp in San Clemente, Tarlac Friday.

On the other hand, MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu admitted yesterday a certain Akmad Santos visited Camp Bushra in Central Mindanao early this year.

In a telephone interview with Manila-based reporters, Kabalu claimed that Santos, who is working for a Cubao-based Muslim radio station, visited them for an interview and not to undergo any military training as reported.

"One Akmad Santos who introduced himself as a radio reporter interviewed me last year. Many mediamen come to Camp Bushra to conduct interviews," Kabalu said.

Camp within NPA zone

Reports from Tarlac City said that the suspected terrorist camp stormed by combined police and military forces before dawn Thursday in an upland village in San Clemente, Tarlac turned out to be within a guerrilla zone of mainstream communist rebels.

Ranking lawmen in the police provincial headquarters at Camp Makabulos in Tarlac City, whose men joined the raid, would not comment on the coincidence that could probably establish a link between the mysterious Haraka group and Maoist rebels belonging to the New People’s Army (NPA).

The northwesternmost town of San Clemente (not barangay as earlier reported) is near the upland Dueg resettlement site, where hundreds of Aeta families displaced by the Mt. Pinatubo eruption now live.

Next to San Clemente is Mangatarem in Pangasinan. Within San Clemente’s mountain ranges are the triangular boundaries of Tarlac, Pangasinan and Zambales, which are being used by NPA guerillas in the region as jumping boards to Central and Northern Luzon provinces.

Taking note of these data gathered from authorities, it will be recalled that as upland barrios of San Clemente are known to be strongholds of the NPA, the MILF has established a tactical alliance with the National Democractic Front (NDF), the communists’ political wing.

Intelligence sources have it that police and military authorities are taking note of this "interesting development," but will not disclose further information so as not to jeopardize ongoing pursuit operations. – With reports from Jaime Laude, Benjie Villa