Salamat died last year from a heart attack.
In the Maguindanao towns of Barira, Buldon and Matanog, residents have been telling of stories about Indonesian men — who they said were members of the regional Muslim militant group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) — participating in Friday prayers in mosques in far-flung barangays.
One of those said to have appeared at least twice in a mosque near the towns of Buldon and Barira was an Indonesian named Julkifli, an alleged top JI operative.
He reportedly was an instructor in a secret JI training camp maintained by the MILF in its former stronghold of Camp Abubakar, which straddles Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur.
Abubakar — now an Army base named Camp Datu Sinsuat — fell to the military in a massive offensive ordered by then President Joseph Estrada in July 2000.
Comment from the MILF was not immediately available. The 12,000-strong rebel group has been fighting for an independent Islamic state in Mindanao for decades.
The presence of Indonesians in MILF camps is nothing strange to Muslim residents in Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao.
MILF insiders said they are convinced that even Hambali, the JI’s operations chief who was arrested last year in Thailand, once visited Salamat in his jungle hideout in Abubakar.
Slain Indonesian bomb expert Fathur Roman al-Ghozi, who was killed by policemen in Pigkawayan, North Cotabato, last Oct. 12 after he escaped from detention at Camp Crame, was a known frequent visitor of Salamat.
The MILF, now led by Murad Ebrahim, also known as Al-Haj Murad, denies it has links with international terrorist organizations.
However, Muslim residents in many areas where MILF forces are scattered have been passing on information bolstering stories of links between the MILF and the JI, which allegedly is al-Qaeda’s regional arm.
Salamat in 1998 repeatedly admitted having received assistance from Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda’s elusive leader, but in the form of grants for the construction of worship sites and madrasah schools inside Camp Abubakar.
Last year, two Muslim farmers at Camp Abubakar confirmed having seen burnt passports scattered in a corn field, believed to have been burned by the rebels as they fled from a military offensive in 2000.
The MILF’s links with international fundamentalist groups first became controversial in the late 1990s, when residents near Abubakar revealed the presence of a training camp of the Free Aceh Movement, an Indonesian secessionist faction.
Salamat and then Indonesian President Abdurahman Wahid came close to a meeting because of the camp, which was later closed down. — Omar Agustin