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Muslim rebels accused of bombing in Manila |
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January 7, 2001
MANILA-- (AP) - Muslim separatists who were trained in Afghanistan are responsible for five New Year's holiday bombs that killed 22 people and injured more than 120 in metropolitan Manila, the Philippine national police chief said Saturday. Philippine Police Director General Panfilo Lacson said he has recommended that leaders of the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front be arrested despite a government move to suspend warrants as part of a confidence-building measure to encourage the rebels to resume peace talks. In Indonesia, meanwhile, bombing suspect Dedi Mulyadi - being held for a string of deadly church bombings on Christmas Eve - told investigators that he and two accomplices learned bomb-making at an Afghan mujahedeen camp in the early 1990s, National Police spokesman Saleh Saaf said. Officials said it was too early to draw a direct link between terrorist groups in Indonesia and the Philippines. On Friday, Philippine police charged MILF chairman Salamat Hashim and six other rebel leaders and guerrillas with murder for allegedly masterminding the bombings of on a commuter train, a bus, in an airport, and at a park and an abandoned gasoline station. Police have arrested one MILF member who allegedly acted as a Manila scout for the separatists, according to a police complaint filed with the Justice Department. In a statement Saturday, MILF vice chairman Al Haj Murad said the MILF "unconditionally condemns" the bombings and blamed the attacks on "clandestine operatives" of the government of President Joseph Estrada. "The MILF has absolutely no reason to stage bombing campaigns in metro Manila aimed at innocent civilians who already believe that Estrada is guilty of corruption and immorality charges," he said, referring to Estrada's ongoing impeachment trial. During President Joseph Estrada's weekly radio-TV program, Lacson said he expected the rebels to deny any role in the carnage because many of the mutilated victims were children. "What happens is we always arrest the foot soldiers, but the leadership is intact," Lacson said. "Our recommendation is neutralize the leadership. If they are neutralized, there will be no one who will give direction and the bombings will stop." Estrada said he will meet the Cabinet's security committee to consider Lacson's recommendation. "I have ordered a nationwide hunt to get all these culprits," he said. "We cannot tolerate this."
Lacson said the bombings were carried out by a 12-man team belonging to a "special operations group" reporting directly to Salamat. He added that most of its members were trained in Afghanistan, but gave no details. The rebels have acknowledged that many of them received military training in Afghanistan while fighting alongside Afghan Mujahedeen against the Soviets. Some training continued even after the Soviets were driven out of Afghanistan, they said.
Indonesian police Saturday were investigating claims that three suspects in a string of deadly bombings of Christian churches on Christmas Eve were trained in terrorist tactics at a Mujahedeen camp in Afghanistan in the early 1990s. Lacson said government soldiers who overran an MILF camp on the Philippines' main southern island of Mindanao in November recovered a document outlining a plan to bomb targets in the Manila area in December. "As investigators, we are 100 percent sure that the bombings were carried out by the MILF," Lacson said. The MILF also was blamed for two mall bombings in the Manila area in May that killed one person and injured 24. At the time, the military claimed the MILF was retaliating for the loss of many of its camps in a massive military operation in Mindanao months earlier. Police later arrested 26 alleged MILF members. Police said Saturday they found and defused another powerful bomb in a shopping mall in the southern city of Davao. In the northern of San Simon, traffic was stopped for several kilometers (miles) as police tried to defuse what appeared to be a bomb near a bridge. The object turned out to be a smoke bomb fitted with wires and a clock, said regional police chief Roberto Calinisan. On Thursday, soldiers raided a Muslim community in suburban Quezon City and detained 18 men in connection with the latest bombings, but Lacson said the military - acting independently of police - failed to nab the real suspects and disrupted the police effort. Fourteen of the men were released Friday. Military Chief of Staff Gen. Angelo Reyes said the other four will be charged with illegal possession of weapons after an assault rifle, a pistol and small sachets of illegal drugs were seized in the raid. The Dec. 30 bombings plunged Philippine politics further into confusion and unleashed a crossfire of accusations targeting the government, political opposition, army, right-wing factions and Muslim and communist guerrillas, among others. Estrada has been on trial before an impeachment tribunal since Dec. 7 on corruption charges.
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