Manado consulate blast: 27 Indonesians arrested

At least 27 Indonesians are being held by Indonesian police for questioning on the bomb attack Saturday on the Philippine consulate in Manado in North Sulawesi.

"The latest to be arrested were two persons, increasing the number of those arrested for questioning and further investigation to 27," Philippine Consul General Reynaldo Martinez told The STAR in a telephone interview yesterday.

Meanwhile, Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Hermogenes Ebdane has put the entire force on alert against possible terrorist attacks on tourist and business destinations across the country.

He alerted all regional commands as early as Sunday in the wake of the deadly bomb attack in Bali, Indonesia’s popular resort island.

Ebdane also said the PNP will send a team to Indonesia to assesss the security of the Philippine embassy, a consulate and Filipino diplomats following the bombing in Bali.

He said Philippine embassies in other Southeast Asian countries might undergo the same security checks to deter possible terrorist attacks.

PNP intelligence chief Roberto Delfin, meanwhile, said police are tracking down four persons linked to the Islamist group Jemaah Islamiyah, who are thought to be planning new attacks in the Philippines.

The four — two Filipinos and two foreigners — are believed to be part of a group that bombed the Light Railway Transit station in Blumentritt, Manila and four other targets in Metro Manila on Dec. 30, 2000 that left 22 people dead and about a hundred others wounded.

Police have stepped up the hunt four the four in the wake of the bombing in Bali that killed more than 180 people and wounded hundreds of others, mostly foreign tourists.

Delfin said that for the past two weeks, "we have not monitored any threats to our country but we believe that they still have plans ans we are monitoring their activities. We believe they are part of Jemaah Islamiah."

Martinez said Indonesian police have stepped up the investigation of the Manado explosion and have tightened security outside the mission.

"For the moment, we are really okay here. We’ve always been okay except for that incident last Saturday. The Indonesian police have been doing their job," Martinez said, adding that the consulate’s staff, numbering over a dozen, have also started taking precautions.

Nobody was hurt in the attack because most of the staff were attending Mass in a nearby church.

"The problem among Filipinos here is always illegal entry and illegal fishing that our fellow countrymen get into. There is nothing else than that," Martinez said.

The consulate assists hundreds of Filipino fishermen who are detained in North Sulawesi on illegal fishing charges. Filipino fishermen are caught poaching in Indonesian waters every now and then.

The Manado blast is the second bomb attack on a Philippine mission in Indonesia since August 2000 when a car bomb went off in Jakarta outside the residence of the Philippine ambassador, Leonides Caday.

Caday, now a senior foreign affairs adviser, was seriously injured.

The blast outside the consulate occurred hours before a deadly car bomb exploded in Bali, south of North Sulawesi.

At least 190 people were killed and 300 were wounded – mostly foreign tourists – when the explosion ripped through a popular nightclub district.

An Indonesia-based militant group linked to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network, Jemaah Islamiyah, is suspected of carrying out the attacks in Bali, Manado and the one against Caday.

The group’s leader, Indonesian Islamic cleric Abubakar Ba’asyir, flatly denied responsibility.

Jakarta is under intense international pressure to arrest Ba’asyir – a self-described Bin Laden admirer – who lives openly in Indonesia. Indonesia said it does not have evidence linking Ba’asyir to terrorists.

Other countries, including the United States, fear that the world’s largest Muslim nation – is becoming a haven for terrorists for its alleged slow response to terrorism.

US and regional intelligence officials believe Jemaah Islamiyah operates in at least five countries – Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.

Philippine security officials suspect the group is recruiting local members and that it was involved in the bomb attack on Oct. 2 in Zamboanga City that killed a US Green Beret and three Filipino civilians.

Early this year, Philippine courts sent to prison two alleged group members, Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi and Agus Dwikarna, for illegal possession of explosives.

Philippine intelligence officials said al-Ghozi and Dwikarna were involved in the 2000 Rizal Day bombings, in which scores of people were killed in a string of bomb attacks across Metro Manila. Al-Ghozi and Dwikarna denied the charge.

Citing sketchy reports, Department of Foreign Affairs sources told The STAR yesterday that the Manado bombing could be a reprisal for the convictions of al-Ghozi and Dwikarna.

Last month, US news reports said al-Qaeda has been moving its operations to Southeast Asia after the loss of its bases in Afghanistan and plans to attack US interests in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam and Cambodia.

It reportedly has formed ties with at least nine local militant groups – including Jemaah Islamiyah – in Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand.

Meanwhile, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) said the Bali massacre –which it described as "despicable" –might give the United States an excuse to deploy troops there.

"The CPP extends its heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of the victims of this heinous crime," spokesman Gregorio Rosal said in a statement.

Early this year, about 1,000 US troops conducted counterterrorism exercises in Mindanao to help Philippine forces battle the Abu Sayyaf, considered a terrorist group by Washington.

In August, the United States included the CPP and its armed wing, the estimated 12,000-strong New People’s Army, in its list of "terrorist" organizations.

The CPP rejected the label, saying it was decriminalized after the 1986 ouster of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos. – With Aurea Calica, Christina Mendez and Benjie Villa