ZAMBOANGA CITY, 5 October 2003 — Philippine and US authorities have arrested an Indonesian suspected of being a Jemaah Islamiya “terrorist” in the southern Philippines ahead of President George W. Bush’s visit to Manila, the military said last night.
Military and police agents raided a pension house in Cotabato City in Central Mindanao on Thursday and arrested Taufic Rifqi, a member of the Southeast Asian militant group linked to a series of bombings in Bali and Jakarta and in Manila which killed hundreds of people since 2000.
The military said at least 3 US agents participated in the operation that led to the capture of the JI member. It was not immediately known how the Indonesian terrorist was tracked down, but the military said the foreigner is being interrogated in an undisclosed place.
The capture of the JI member came barely two weeks before Bush’s arrival in Manila.
President Gloria Arroyo has ordered the police and military to be in high alert because of reports that Abu Sayyaf rebels, whose group is tied to the 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 the separatist group’s leaders strongly denied this.
Early this week, 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 fail to sign a peace accord with the government.
President Arroyo also warned the MILF this week 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 Islamiya or Osama Bin Laden or the Al-Qaeda. The MILF is an independent organization fighting for the oppresed rights of the Muslims and our freedom in Mindanao, the land of the Bangsamoro people,” Kabalu said.
Philippines authorities have captured last year Indonesian JI member Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi, who confessed to masterminding the Rizal Day bombing in Manila in Dec. 30, 2000, that killed 21 people, in retaliation to the government offensive against the MILF in Mindanao.
His arrest led authorities to a huge cache of explosives in his apartment in General Santos City in southeastern Mindanao. Al-Ghozi escaped on July 14 from his prison cell inside the national police headquarters in Camp Crame in Manila together with two Abu Sayyaf rebels Abdulmukim Edris and Omar Opik Kasak.
Troops recaptured Edris along with an MILF leader Mahmood Ismael on Aug. 8 in Sultan Naga Dimaporo town 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.
