RADICAL MUSLIM CONVERTS TAKE CENTER STAGE

Intelligence officials in Manila say the arrest of the leader of a group of radical Muslim converts may have averted terrorist attacks in the capital over the holiday period. A senior army intelligence officer said that Pio de Vera, allegedly the number two of the Rajah Solaiman Movement (RSM), was captured last week in Zamboanga, on the southern island of Mindanao. The revelation comes on the heels of a report by the International Crisis Group on the danger that radicalised Muslim converts pose to the Philippines, by providing a logistical base in Manila for other more established terror groups.

“We have pre-empted what we believe was a major terror plot by Muslim militants to bomb night spots in the capital over the Christmas holidays,” the official said.

In a report entitled “Philippines Terrorism:The Role of Militant Islamic Converts”, published on Monday, the International Crisis Group (ICG) warns of increasingly close contact between Rajah Solaiman Movement (RSM) and Islamist terror formations Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah. RSM is the extremist wing of the Balik-Islam movement, literally ‘return to Islam’.

The ICG notes that most RSM members live between Manila and the northern region of Luzon, while JI and Abu Sayyaf have their strongholds in the island of Mindanao, in the south. The arrest of Pio De Vera (RSM) in Mindanao would appear to confirm their concerns.

The Brussels-based ICG, which focuses on conflict prevention and resolution, suggests that the collaboration between RSM JI and Abu Sayyaf has paradoxically been fostered by a series of anti-terrorism measures adopted by the Philippines government in recent years. In the peace deal with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Manila forced the Islamist group to cut its links with various terror groups to whom it had offered sanctuary.

The MILF is one of the groups which is fighting for the creation of an Islamic state on Mindanao where it controls a few provinces. Since other terror operators were no longer welcome in the MILF camps they had to seek contacts and support elsewhere.

Other factors which encouraged JI and Abu Sayyaf to seek new partners were the successes obtained by the security forces against them and the operations of the Filipino army helped by the American marines, on the island of Basilan, the historic headquarters of Abu Sayyaf.

AKI Online