ZAMBOANGA CITY/MANILA, 24 October 2003 — Authorities said yesterday two Al-Qaeda suspects had been captured and that a huge manhunt was under way in the south of the country for dozens of militants from the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) group.
Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo said Jordanian Mahmoud Afif Abdeljalil, 36, was being interrogated while Kuwaiti Jasem Alhasan had been deported. She said both were suspected Al-Qaeda operatives.
The men were detained within the past few weeks in the southern city of Zamboanga where the authorities said they were in close contact with Islamic militants from the Abu Sayyaf and other groups.
Domingo announced the arrests a week after the Defense Department disclosed the capture of the Jemaah’s alleged No. 2 man in the Philippines.
President Gloria Arroyo yesterday paraded the Jemaah suspect, named Taufek Refke, who is said to be the finance officer of the Jemaah Islamiyah in the Philippines.
“We have exposed a large cell of the Jemaah Islamiyah,” Arroyo told a briefing as a handcuffed Refke stood behind her flanked by two soldiers. The spelling of his name was previously given as Taufik Rifqi.
Jemaah Islamiyah is blamed for a series of attacks in Southeast Asia, including deadly blasts on the Indonesian island of Bali a year ago. The group is linked to Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network.
Arroyo said Refke was a student of JI explosives expert Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi, who was killed by police on Oct. 12. She said documents uncovered during his arrest showed a cell of around 40 JI militants on the loose in Mindanao. She hailed Refke’s arrest as a major victory in the war on terror and said a large Jemaah Islamiyah cell had been exposed. “The terrorists are falling one by one,” said Arroyo. “This reduces the weight of terrorist threat across the broad range of targets in our country and across Southeast Asia.”
Intelligence agencies and analysts say JI is effectively the Southeast Asian arm of Al-Qaeda, and both groups have been accused of close links to Philippine Islamic rebels in Mindanao.
Refke is believed to have entered the Philippines in August 1998 to undergo training at Camp Abubakar, the former headquarters of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
The two Arabs were detained several weeks ago, said Immigration Commissioner Domingo.
She said Mahmoud was arrested on Sept. 25 in Zamboanga and was now being interrogated. Domingo said he was the envoy for Saudi Arabian Jamal Khalifa, Bin Laden’s brother-in-law.
Philippine authorities have accused Khalifa of providing money to the Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim guerrilla group that is involved in bombings and kidnappings in the southern Philippines as well as in nearby Malaysia.
Domingo alleged that Mahmoud took over Khalifa’s business front companies, including a Zamboanga-based construction firm, after the Saudi Arabian left the country in 1994.
She said the companies were used to channel money to finance terrorist activities in the Philippines and abroad.
The other suspect, Alhasan, was arrested at Zamboanga airport a few days before Abdeljalil. He was deported to Kuwait on October 8.
Fears of a possible terrorist attack have caused turbulence in the financial markets, with the peso closing flat at 55.240 yesterday. Arroyo sought to reassure investors by stressing her government “will contain this threat if not totally eliminate it.”
