MANILA, 6 November — The largest Muslim armed group in the Philippines has said it would help arrest militants linked to the Al-Qaeda network and the Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah, a government official said yesterday.
Presidential adviser Norberto Gonzales told reporters that Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) military chief Al-Haj Murad had made the promise after he was told that the United States was “seriously considering” blacklisting the MILF as a terrorist organization.
“We agreed that to avert that, we would hasten the resumption of the peace talks (between the government and the MILF),” Gonzales said. “We also agreed that we would help each other arrest those individuals (linked to Al-Qaeda and Jemaah).”
Gonzales said he expected that “possibly less than 50” local militants linked to Al-Qaeda and Jemaah would be arrested in the southern Philippines’ shortly, with the help of the MILF.
Asked to comment on the planned move by the US, MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu it is still premature to react since there was no actual declaration.
Moreover, he said, any decision such matters is vested solely on the Front’s Central Committee, its highest decision making body.
But Kabalu said he personally believe that this move is nothing but part of the effort by some sectors in the government to derail or sabotage the ongoing peace talks.
“Such a move (blacklisting) is unfair because it is being done without the benefit of an investigation,” he said.
He said the MILF had even invited the government to initiate a fair investigation on the alleged tie-up between the MILF and militants but “they choose to remain silent.”
“Apparently, the government has contented itself with all these news items coming out against the MILF, and that is why we suspect that this is part of a black propaganda against the Front,” he said.
The US government has designated the smaller Abu Sayyaf group a terrorist organization due to its alleged links with Al-Qaeda, which has claimed responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
But the MILF has been untouched by anti-terror operations although sporadic clashes with government forces continue.
MILF spokesman Kabalu charged on Sunday that the United States wanted to crush all militant Islamic organizations in the region.
“There is a pattern on all militant organizations in Southeast Asia. So long as it involves Islam, the United States wants to crush all militant organizations,” he said.
He denied allegations his group was involved with either Al-Qaeda or the Jemaah Islamiyah, suspected in the Bali bombings, which killed nearly 200 people. An Indonesian national who has admitted being a Jemaah operative and is now jailed in Manila has told investigators he and some MILF men were involved in a wave of bombings in Manila in December 2000 that killed more than 20 people.
Gonzales said Murad told him the militants involved with Al-Qaeda and Jemaah were former MILF members who had broken away from the group.
“We already have a list of the names of former MILF people who are involved with foreign terrorism,” the official added.
The MILF, with an estimated 13,000 fighters, is the biggest of several Muslim groups fighting for an Islamic homeland in this mainly Roman Catholic country.
Manila suspended formal peace negotiations with the MILF earlier this year after hostilities broke out despite a cease-fire agreement. It has shunned negotiations with the Abu Sayyaf group, a kidnap-for-ransom gang now blacklisted by the United States as a terrorist group.
