MILF: US trying to crush Islamic groups in South Asia

ZAMBOANGA CITY (AFP) – The country’s largest Muslim rebel group accused the United States yesterday of seeking to crush all Islamic militant organizations in Southeast Asia.

Eid Kabalu, spokesman for the Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), made the accusation as he denied allegations that his group was involved with either al-Qaeda or the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) extremist network.

"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," Kabalu said.

He said the United States considered Islam "the next enemy of the West," after the collapse of the Soviet Union and warned that President Arroyo might feel compelled to follow Washington’s lead.

Kabalu branded as fabrications intelligence reports that the MILF had previously set up training camps in this country for al-Qaeda and the JI.

"We have been denying this all the time but no amount of denial can appease the US about these things," he said.

Kabalu also denied that MILF chairman Hashim Salamat had ever spoken to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who is accused by Washington of masterminding the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, as alleged in intelligence reports.

He said that in the 1980s, the MILF had sent some fighters to train in Afghanistan against Soviet forces but they had not been under al-Qaeda.

The Jemaah Islamiyah militant Muslim group is suspected of involvement in the Oct. 12 bomb blasts in Bali, Indonesia which killed more than 190 people.

Two Indonesians with suspected links to JI are being held in the Philippines over alleged involvement in bomb plots.

But Kabalu said Manila clearly did not believe the MILF was involved in terrorism because it was still proceeding with peace talks with the group.

The 12,000-strong MILF last year signed a ceasefire agreement with Manila, paving the way for peace negotiations aimed at reaching a political solution to its 28-year insurgency.

Kabalu also reiterated that a ranking MILF commander, Sulaiman Hashim, also known as Abu Hashim, arrested recently while allegedly carrying a bomb, was innocent and that the bomb had been planted.

Authorities are checking whether Hashim could have played a role in a series of bomb explosions in the south and in Manila last month that killed 23 people.

The Philippines was one of the first to declare support for the US-led war against terror in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks in the US.

However, US-Philippine anti-terror efforts so far have been focused on the smaller Abu Sayyaf Muslim kidnapping group in the South and have left the MILF largely untouched.