ZAMBOANGA CITY, 4 August 2004 — Troops have captured two suspected local members of the Southeast Asian terror network Jemaah Islamiya (JI), implicated in deadly bombings two years ago in Manila, an army spokesman said yesterday.

Security forces swooped down on a JI hideout in the village of Lilod in Marawi City and arrested Mamasao Naga and Abdul Pata, who were both tagged in the bombing of a railway system and a passenger bus in Manila in December 2002, said Lt. Col. Bienvenido Pascual.

He said the duo belonged to the group of Indonesian JI bomb-maker Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi, who was killed in a clash with troops in October last year in North Cotabato province, and detained terrorist Muklis Yunos.

“Justice finally caught up with them. The two Mamasao Naga and Abdul Pata are members of the terrorists group Jemaah Islamiya and we have evidence to prove that,” Pascual told Arab News.

Pascual said soldiers, from the army intelligence and the marines, seized from the duo an automatic pistol and documents detailing the JI operation in the Philippines.”Recovered from them are one Daewoo pistol and documents detailing the JI links in the Philippines,” he said without further elaborating.

The military said the duo were facing a string of multiple murder charges in Manila. The attacks in Manila had killed more than two dozen people and injured many more and were believed to be in retaliation on government offensives against separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels in the southern Philippines.

Soldiers also arrested in June an Eyptian man Hassan Bakre for suspected Al-Qaeda links in Maguindanao province and the military said he was one of several foreign militants who fought security forces during an offensive four years ago against MILF rebels.

The military said Bakre, a bomb expert, admitted he and several Egyptians and Indonesian militants, were training rebels inside the MILF’s Camp Omar in the south.

It said that Bakre arrived in the Philippines in 1999 from Malaysia along with six other foreigners and that they were brought to the MILF main headquarters Camp Abubakar As-Siddique where he joined the rebel forces in defending the camp against the soldiers.

The two camps were overrun by the military in 2000, but as part of continuing peace talks between Manila and MILF, portions of the Camps Abubakar As-Siddique and Omar were returned to the rebels.

MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu repeatedly denied that his group had links with JI and Al-Qaeda terror networks or Bakre and said the foreigner was just a “bankrupt” trader and is married to a Filipino woman in Maguindanao.

Arms Shipment

Last week, the military accused the MILF of bringing in a large shipment of weapons into Lanao del Sur and Sultan Kudarat provinces, despite the ongoing peace talks.

But Ghazali Jaafar, MILF vice chairman for political affairs, yesterday strongly denied the accusation and called for a joint government investigation.

“It is not true. We strongly deny this allegation and the MILF is urging the government and the cease-fire committees to jointly investigate this report. We can jointly inspect those areas where the arms shipment had allegedly landed,” Jaafar said in a phone interview.

Jaafar blamed military officials opposed to the peace talks as behind the false reports.

“We suspect that military officials who are opposed to the peace talks or those who wanted a promotion could behind all these allegations,” he said.

He said the MILF is sincere in the peace talks and that rebel forces were strictly complying with the cease-fire agreement.

“We wanted peace, just as the government wanted to have peace in the southern Philippines. The MILF is sincere in the peace talks and we are complying with the cease-fire agreement. We will not do anything to derail the peace process,” he said.