'Foreign terrorists still taking advantage of porous southern backdoor'

MANILA, Philippines - An undetermined number of foreign terrorists operating in the region have been continuously taking advantage of the porous border in the Philippines’ southern backdoor to enter and leave the country unchecked, a senior military official said yesterday.

This explains why Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) militants continue to pour in southern Mindanao virtually undetected, Armed Forces deputy chief for operations Brig. Gen. Jose Mabanta said.

He said this has been happening despite the implementation of the project Coast Watch South (CWS).

While CWS had been helpful in monitoring movements of lawless elements in the southern backdoor, Mabanta said its operations are more focused on keeping an eye on “big ticket items,” meaning known JI terrorists operating in the region.

CWS is a radar-based monitoring system jointly established by the Philippines, Australia and the US in a bid to plug the free entry of JI militants and other foreign terrorists.

Earlier, a Singaporean security expert said a dozen Indonesian and Malaysian terrorists are now operating alongside the Abu Sayyaf in the Sulu archipelago.

Armed Forces intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Francisco Cruz, however, said they have only identified four of these Malaysian and Indonesian terrorists.

These JI operatives who are now mainly based in Sulu, according to Cruz, include Zulkifli Bin Hir who also goes by the name Marwan.

Marwan, a known JI bomb and demolition expert, was dispatched by the JI leadership to southern Philippines during the late 1990s to supposedly spearhead and supervise the training of foreign and local JI recruits in Central Mindanao.

While in Central Mindanao, Marwan was able to establish several JI training camps inside Camp Abubakar, then the sprawling headquarters of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that was overran and dismantled by the military in 2000.

There were intelligence reports that Marwan is now operating in Basilan and Sulu and on several occasions, he was sighted along with Abu Sayyaf bandits in the two island provinces in Western Mindanao.