[Nettime-bold] American Action Is Held Likely in Asia

[John Armitage <john.armitage@unn.ac.uk>]

[ Next stop: Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia -- are the Globocops on aworld tour? John.]
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http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/10/international/asia/10INTE.html?todaysheadl
ines=&pagewanted=print
October 10, 2001

=======================
http://www.nytimes.com/

The New York Times

GLOBAL LINKS 

American Action Is Held Likely in Asia

By TIM WEINER

      WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 - Terrorists tied to Osama bin Laden's network and
based in the Philippines,
       Indonesia and Malaysia are among the likely targets of future covert
and overt American actions, United States
officials said today.

The officials gave no timetable; they said the campaign against the groups
linked to Mr. bin Laden and his group, Al
Qaeda, is global and may last for years. But they said that the East Asian
groups have expanded their operations in
recent years, exchanging money, personnel, materiel and experience with the
bin Laden organization and its allies, and
that they pose a clear and present danger to American institutions overseas.

"There has been a concerted effort by bin Laden and his people to expand
their activities in East Asia, not only in the
Philippines but in Malaysia and Indonesia," a United States official said.
"The Philippines have become a major
operational hub, and it's a serious concern. People linked to bin Laden are
not only in Manila but elsewhere in the
Philippines."

The groups have thrived in the political and economic instability in the
Philippines, a predominantly Roman Catholic
country, and in Indonesia, which is predominantly Muslim; street protests
against the airstrikes on Afghanistan took
place today outside the American embassies in both countries. In recent
years, the fundamentalist groups have gained
adherents in the name of a holy war against American institutions and
influence, officials said. 

The United States ambassador to the United Nations, John D. Negroponte, told
the Security Council on Monday that
the United States, acting in self-defense after the Sept. 11 attacks, may
take "further actions with respect to other
organizations and other states." 

Mr. Negroponte, an American ambassador to the Philippines in the 1990's,
cited no groups or states by name. But
administration officials have said repeatedly that Mr. Bin Laden has
adherents and allies all over the world, and that the
war against them will range far beyond Afghanistan. East Asia, and
particularly the Philippines, officials said, is an area
where terrorists who have struck the United States before are known to have
planned their attacks. 

Militant Islamic groups in East Asia - chief among them, the Abu Sayyaf
group, based in the Philippines - are high on
the list of American counter-terrorism targets to come, officials said
today.

Hundreds of Abu Sayyaf fighters are battling the Philippine army on Basilan,
an island in the south. The group has taken
two American hostages: Martin and Gracia Burnham, missionaries from Wichita,
Kan. 

The Burnhams were celebrating their 18th wedding anniversary in May, when
they and a third American, Guillermo
Sobero of Corona, Calif., were kidnapped from a resort on Palawan, a large
western island of the Philippine
archipelago. Mr. Sobero may be dead, officials said.

The Abu Sayyaf group, which is on the official United States list of
terrorist organizations, has obtained millions of
dollars in ransom from kidnapping tourists, missionaries and resort workers.
Libyan representatives played a role in the
release of some hostages for ransom, State Department officials said.

The group has used ransom money to buy weapons and speedboats, to pay
recruits and to bribe Philippine soldiers,
American officials suspect.

Members of Abu Sayyaf, which says it is fighting for a separate Islamic
nation, have links to the bin Laden organization,
officials said. 

The leader of the group is known as Abdujarak Abubakar Janjalani. He is a
Filipino Muslim who has said he fought
alongside the Afghan rebels battling the Soviet invaders of Afghanistan
during the 1980's.

Al Qaeda's connections in the Philippines include Islamic schools and
charities through which millions of dollars have
flowed to support the group and its allies across South and East Asia,
officials said. 

They include the International Islamic Relief Organization office and Al
Makdum university in Zamboanga, a city on the
island of Mindanao, just north of Basilan island. Mr. bin Laden's
brother-in-law, Mohammed Jalal Khalifa, was an
administrator at both institutions. Neither is operating any longer, and Mr.
Khalifa was arrested by the Saudi government
after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Also since the attacks, Philippine intelligence officers have arrested two
suspected Abu Sayyaf commanders and several
men they described as foreigners carrying bombs. Malaysia has charged the
son of a leading opposition politician with
plotting to overthrow the government. Indonesia has imprisoned two
Malaysians in connection with a series of
bombings.

In Indonesia, armed Islamic fundamentalist groups have received money, men
and arms from the bin Laden group and
its allies, officials said. One group, Laskar Jihad, they said, has been
reinforced by Taliban guerrillas. Another, the
Islamic Defenders Front, is threatening violence against American officials
and organizations.

Some members of Al Qaeda have transited through the international airport at
Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, officials said.
One of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Khalid Al-Midhar, was videotaped at a
terrorist meeting in Kuala Lumpur in January
2000. 

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines said recently that
"traces of relationship" exist between the Abu
Sayyaf guerrillas and the Sept. 11 attack plotters. She has offered the
United States airspace and the use of two large
former United States military installations, the Clark Air Base, and the
Subic Bay naval base, for transit and staging
operations. 

The offer was secured in a meeting at Subic Bay two weeks ago between Adm.
Thomas Fargo, commander of the
Pacific Fleet, and Rolio Golez, the Philippine national security adviser,
both 1970 graduates of the United States Naval
Academy.

President Bush is scheduled to discuss the counter-terrorism campaign with
the presidents of the Philippines and
Indonesia and the prime minister of Malaysia in Shanghai on Oct. 19 at the
Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting.

Terrorists aiming to attack the United States have been based in the
Philippines for years. 

Ramzi Yousef, a convicted ringleader in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing,
plotted in Manila to blow up 11 jumbo
jets headed for the United States. He was arrested in Pakistan at a rooming
house financed by Mr. bin Laden. His
roommate in Manila, Abdul Hakim Murad, had a commercial pilot license and
plotted to crash a jet into the Central
Intelligence Agency headquarters in Virginia. 

And Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, convicted in the 1998 bombing of the United States
Embassy in Nairobi, was a student
in the Philippines when he first came to the bin Laden organization.

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