Congressmen want to know extent of bioterror threat

Administration and opposition congressmen urged the country’s security officials yesterday to fully disclose the extent of the reported threat of bioterrorism in the country so the public can take measures to protect themselves.

The congressmen made the appeal as Armed Forces vice chief of staff Lt. Gen. Rodolfo Garcia said the substance found in a suspected Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) hideout in Cotabato City on Sunday was actually a powerful explosive — the same type used in a car bomb attack that killed 52 people in Mumbai, India last year.

But the raid on the JI lair, apparently involving two American "biological warfare experts," took a different turn as Cotabato City police chief Senior Superintendent Peraco Macacua charged that the police-military raiders planted evidence to "project" the presence of JI terrorists in the country.

However, Defense Secretary Eduardo Ermita maintained that security forces are now hot on the tracks of at least 40 JI operatives who are certainly planning bombings and maybe even bioterror attacks.

Department of Health (DOH) experts said it was unlikely that the tetanus bacteria, or Clostridium tetanus, would be used in a biological weapon because it is not very effective.

Nonetheless, House deputy minority leader and Iloilo Rep. Rolex Suplico said the public must be apprised of the security situation so people can take protective measures.

"There must be full disclosure of any kind of threat against public coming from terrorist groups. The more the public is informed, the more prepared they can be," Suplico said, adding that uncertainty will only cause nervousness and even panic.

Cebu Rep. Joseph Durano, chairman of the House committee on public order, said that although no biological agents were found in the raid, it is clear that the JI is operating in the country.

"What is clear is that the JI and other terrorist groups are now going regional and global," he said. "We are perceived as the weakest link in the regional campaign against terrorism, we must get our act together."

Durano proposed that security officials implement a "terror alert level mechanism" similar to that in the United States so that people will have an indicator but operational details will not have to be made public.

House defense committee chairman Surigao del Sur Rep. Prospero Pichay, on the other hand, downplayed the JI’s bioterror capability and said there is little evidence that the JI can manufacture biological weapons.

"They might be good in bombmaking but not in biological warfare. Let us not alarm the public," Pichay said.

Pichay said, however, that it is possible that rogue Iraqi scientists may have entered the country to train local terrorists in making biological weapons.

Tetanus Is No Bio-Weapon

But DOH experts said it was unlikely that the tetanus bacteria, or Clostridium tetanus, would be used in a biological weapon because of its doubtful potency.

"I don’t think it can be used as a biochemical weapon," said physician Bernard Rivera of the DOH Infectious Diseases Division, explaining that the bacteria cannot survive in places with high oxygen levels.

"When you mix it with a bomb and you drop it, it gets neutralized because of the oxygen or gets burned because of the explosion," he said.

But Rivera explained that Clostridium tetanus is also used in making ammunition because the bacteria makes the explosion stronger.

Clostridium tetanus usually attacks the human nervous system resulting in painful paralysis or death through respiratory arrest.

What Is RDX?

Although security officials scrambled to deny that biological agents were found at the JI hideout, Interior and Local Government Secretary Jose Lina confirmed that the seized chemical compound was cyclotrimethylene trinitramine, also known as RDX.

"There is no such thing as tetanus bacillus. There is no such thing," Lina said, identifying the find as the explosive also known cyclonite or hexogen.

Military explosives experts call it RDX because it is also designated as Royal Demolition eXplosive.

RDX, in its pure synthesized state, is a white crystalline explosive and is usually used in mixtures with other explosives and plasticizers or desensitizers. It is stable in storage and is considered the most powerful of the military high explosives.

RDX forms the base for a number of common military explosives: Composition A (wax-coated, granular explosive consisting of RDX and plasticizing wax), Composition B (castable mixtures of RDX and trinitrotoluene), Composition C (a plastic demolition explosive consisting of RDX, other explosives, and plasticizers), Composition D, HBX (castable mixtures of RDX, TNT, powdered aluminum, and D-2 wax with calcium chloride), H-6 and cyclotol.

The manufacture of RDX can also easily pollute soil and ground water.

Aside from its use in the two car bombs that killed 52 people in Mumbai, India in August last year, it was also used in the 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai that killed more than 300 people.

Planted Evidence?

Despite the seizure of the RDX, however, Cotabato City police chief Macacua claimed that there were no JI terrorists in his jurisdiction and that the police-military raiders only planted evidence to "project" the presence of JI terrorists in the country.

"It would be impossible for our local agents not to know the presence of foreigners in that particular barangay because that is a residential area, so easy to monitor," Macacua said, claiming that uncollected guavas rotting in the backyard was proof that the alleged JI hideout was unoccupied.

"Based on our information, no one was occupying that house in the last three or four months, until the time the raid was carried out," Macacua said.

Macacua said it is "very impossible" for terrorists to leave important belongings in an abandoned safehouse.

"Unless we bring there pieces of evidence, such as bomb-making materials, to project that there were indeed JI terrorists there," Macacua said.

"Well, all the details of the operation and the recovery of the bomb-making paraphernalia there is so foreign to us because we haven’t seen how they were found there," he added.

Confirmation

But residents of 3rd Street in the Don Sero district, Barangay Rosary Hills in Cotabato City, where the explosive was found, confirmed that there were indeed four foreign language-speaking men who lived in the house and were last seen on Friday.

Residents told The STAR that the men were carrying prayer rugs and went in the direction of the mosque.

The owner of the apartment himself, one Lolito Adanza told investigators that he leased the house to Filipinos but four Austronesian "foreigners" were seen at the apartment.

Residents who spoke with the men said they spoke in English but could be heard speaking to each other in a foreign language and even identified two of the men as Samier and Bukhari.

The raided house was only a block away from a house which the military raided two weeks ago after reports that Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khaddafy Janjalani was sighted there.

Residents in the area said they had repeatedly seen a green Volkswagen parked in front of the suspected JI safehouse. — with reports from John Unson, Mike Frialde, Jaime Laude, Perseus Echeminada, Sheila Crisostomo, Ding Cervantes, AP, AFP