DAVAO CITY, 16 September — The chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP) has sought to allay fears that alleged international terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden has slipped into the country.
Director General Leandro Mendoza said talk about links between Bin Laden with local Moro rebel groups have not been proven either.
Mendoza said speculations of Bin Laden’s connection with Moro separatist groups were fueled by intelligence reports that the Afghanistan-based billionaire deployed supposed scholars to Mindanao.
“But those reports were never validated,” Mendoza told the media at the PNP regional headquarters in Davao on Thursday night.
Bin Laden is being suspected of orchestrating terrorist attacks against American targets, including the devastating Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington D.C.
Mendoza said speculations of Abu Sayyaf and Bin Laden’s operation surfaced after intelligence reports indicated some members of the group trained and joined the Mujahedeen brigade in Afghanistan in their fight against invading forces of the defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
He said the PNP could not ascertain if there is indeed a tie-up between the Abu Sayyaf and Bin Laden’s group.
“Its possible that they (Abu Sayyaf) have a connection but so far we have not established that connection,” he said.
On the speculation that Bin Laden was seeking sanctuary in the country, Mendoza said the suspected terrorist leader would not possibly do that since the Philippines played a significant role in the discovery in 1995 of a plot allegedly by Bin Laden to hijack US-owned airliner in Southeast Asia and slam it on a US facility in the region .
The plan was reportedly discovered after a bomb being assembled by Bin Laden’s alleged cohorts at an inn in Manila went off prematurely.
The discovery of the plot led to the arrest, extradition and later conviction of Ramsey Yousef and his two other colleagues for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York. “Osama Bin laden may be safer somewhere” but Mendoza said.
Mendoza also reports that Bin Laden was married to a woman from Mindanao were not correct. Even then, he said, the PNP is keeping a tight watch of suspected international terrorist groups coming into the country to seek sanctuary.
He said the PNP already gathered some leads on the identities of international terrorists through the list and pictures provided by the International Police (Interpol).
He said the police is also watching so-called terrorist groups based in the country who might try to replicate the attacks in America “even though we know that the possibility is very remote.
