Egyptian couple in Sulu to plot bombings — analyst

MANILA, Philippines — An Egyptian couple said to have direct links with Islamic State (IS) is in the country and plotting to launch a series of suicide bombings in Sulu, according to a local security analyst.

Rommel Banlaoi, a security analyst and professor of International Studies at Miriam College, said yesterday that the couple is here to carry out instructions of IS leadership to conduct suicide bombings in the Philippines.

Now in Sulu, the couple is apparently waiting for a good opportunity to launch attacks at the Carmel of Mary Immaculate and St. Therese of the Child Jesus churches in Jolo, Banlaoi said.

“An Egyptian couple identified only as alias Abu Abdurahman and his wife will reportedly carry out bombings,” Banlaoi said in forum held in Quezon City.

Citing intelligence information he obtained from contacts, Banlaoi said the couple is being coddled by the Abu Sayyaf headed by Hajan Sawadjaan.

“That’s all I can say but they are being supported by other foreign terrorists,” Banlaoi said.

Lt. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana, commander of the Zamboanga City-based Western Mindanao Command (Westmincom), said the presence of the Egyptian couple in Sulu is new to him.

Sobejana confirmed that there are indeed foreign terrorists based in Sulu but they’re only known to be Indonesians and Moroccans.

“So far in our monitoring there’s no Egyptians, only Indonesians and Moroccans,” Sobejana said.

The two Moroccans are the children of a Moroccan terrorist who blew himself up at an Army checkpoint in Basilan on July 31 last year. The orphaned children are now being coddled by Sawadjaan, Sobejana said.

On the other hand, the presence of Indonesian terrorists in Sulu, he said, was confirmed following the deadly bomb blasts at the Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Cathedral in Jolo in January this year.

“I have ordered our intelligence units to validate this report (the presence of Egyptian terrorists in Sulu),” Sobejana said, adding the number of these foreign terrorists in the troubled island province varies from time to time.

As of yesterday, the military is awaiting the results of DNA tests on samples taken from the two suicide bombers behind the twin explosions at the gate and inside the compound housing the headquarters of the 1st Brigade Combat Team (BCT) in Indanan, Sulu last June 28.

There were reports that the suicide bombings were carried out by local terrorists, whom Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana described as a new breed of Muslim juramentados.

Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) spokesman Brig. Gen. Edgard Arevalo maintained the military has no information on the presence of Egyptian terrorists who are in cahoots with the Abu Sayyaf in Sulu.

“We have no information on the alleged Egyptian couple as what was revealed by an ‘academic analyst in terrorism’,” Arevalo said.

He said the military is in the process of pursuing leads on the perpetrators of the twin explosions in Sulu and in Basilan and has not stumbled upon any information on the reported presence and involvement of the supposed Egyptian couple in these suicide attacks.