ZAMBOANGA CITY, 18 October 2003 — Defense chief Eduardo Ermita yesterday said police have in their custody a key Jemaah Islamiyah man ranked second in the Southeast Asian terrorist group linked to the Al-Qaeda network.

Ermita said security forces arrested the JI man, identified only as Taufiq Rifqi. He also said on a television interview yesterday that a top JI leader Julkipli was also arrested in Malaysia, but Ermita did not say when and how the man had been captured.

He was reacting to questions whether JI still poses a threat to the Philippines, now that Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi, an Indonesian militant bomb expert, had been killed in a shoot-out with security forces Oct. 5 in the southern town of Pigcauayan.

“With arrests of these JI and the killing of Al-Ghozi, I think they won’t pose much serious problem,” Ermita said.

A senior JI leader, Hambali, plotting to carry out terror attacks during the Apec Summit, was captured also last month in Thailand. Hambali has been dubbed by the US Central Intelligence Agency as the “Osama Bin Laden” of South East Asia. He is believed to be the operations chief for the shadowy militant group Jemaah Islamiyah, and has been named as a key suspect in a string of bombings across the region.

Ermita did not further elaborate about the JI man arrested in a budget hotel in Maguindanao’s Cotabato City.

But a military report from Maguindanao said the suspect is an Indonesian national identified as Taufic Rifqi alias Ami Irza. He was arrested Oct. 2 after Philippines and US authorities raided his hotel room.

The military said at least 3 US agents participated in the operation that led to the capture of Rifqi. It was not immediately known how the Indonesian terrorist was tracked down.

The capture of the JI member came barely two weeks before Bush’s visit to Manila. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has ordered the police and military to be in high alert because of reports that Abu Sayyaf rebels, whose group is tied to Al-Qaeda network, would mount fresh attacks targeting US interests.

Both JI and Al-Qaeda have threatened to attack American citizens and interests around the world. The two groups were also linked by Philippine authorities and Western intelligence to the local separatist rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), but its leaders strongly denied involvements with either JI or Al-Qaeda network.

US Ambassador to Manila Francis Ricciardone said JI members were operating inside MILF territories in the southern Philippines and warned the rebel group that it may lose millions of dollars in aid if it harbors international terrorists and fails to sign a peace accord with Manila.

President Arroyo also warned the MILF to cut off ties with JI or Al-Qaeda network and instead pursue the peace talks.

MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said his group has no links with the Indonesian terror network or Osama bin Laden.

“We have repeatedly said that the MILF has no links or connection with either the Jemaah Islamiyah or Osama Bin Laden or the Al-Qaeda,” Kabalu told reporters.

Al-Ghozi, who confessed to masterminding the Dec. 30, 2000, bombings in Manila that left 21 people dead, was captured last year and bolted from a police prison facility in Manila with Abu Sayyaf militants Abdulmukim Edris and Omar Opik Lasal. His arrest led authorities to a huge cache of explosives in his apartment in General Santos City in southern Philippines.

Troops recaptured Edris on Aug. 8 in in Lanao province, but were killed after they allegedly tried to grab the weapons of their escorts while leading them to Al-Ghozi’s hideout in the mountain.

Lasal was recaptured Oct. 12 in Dumalinao town in Zamboanga del Sur province.