‘South a major terror training ground’

Detained terror suspect Indonesian Rohmat claimed yesterday the southern Philippines has become a major training ground for regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah.

Rohmat claimed Central Mindanao had hosted several terror camps maintained by the JI that also serve as a refuge for Indonesians involved in major attacks, including the 2002 Bali bombings.

Rohmat, arrested last week as an alleged JI operative in the country, even claimed he trained new recruits of the Abu Sayyaf and said its leaders were plotting more bombings and kidnappings.

Details provided by the 25-year-old Indonesian showed a close but highly compartmentalized relationship between the JI and the Abu Sayyaf – two of the most dangerous groups in Southeast Asia – and partly explained why the threat of terrorism has persisted despite years of crackdown.

The military announced Rohmat’s capture on Tuesday, a week after he was arrested by soldiers and immigration officials at a road checkpoint in Datu Saudi Ampatuan town in Maguindanao on March 16.

When he left Jabal Qubah, a JI terror camp located in the jungles of Central Mindanao, shortly before he was arrested, Rohmat said 23 Indonesian recruits had just finished jungle training that included lessons in explosives, weapons, combat and Islam.

"There were 23 men who had just finished the courses. I heard they would be sent back home (to Indonesia) and others would stay behind to train a new batch," Rohmat said in an interview at a military safehouse in the presence of security officials.

He said the training of JI recruits in Mindanao started in the late 1990s.

Rohmat said he traveled to the southern Philippines as a trainee with other Indonesians in January 2000, and two years later became an instructor on Islam and martial arts – not bomb-making, as alleged by military officials.

He claimed to have taught his countrymen and local Abu Sayyaf recruits from Maguindanao and Jolo.

Around 2002, Rohmat, who assumed a number of local aliases including Zaki, said he was designated by Zulkifli, then the Indonesian head of the JI cell in the Philippines, as a contact man for the Abu Sayyaf.

Rohmat claimed he had been assigned to stay close to Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khaddafy Janjalani and bandit spokesman Abu Solaiman.

He said the Abu Sayyaf planned attacks on its own, independent of the JI, which only provided training.

Rohmat claimed he was present at a meeting when Janjalani and Solaiman plotted the Valentine’s Day bombings that killed 13 people and injured more than 100 others in Makati City and the cities of Davao and General Santos in Mindanao. He said the two bandit leaders also gave orders for new major bombing runs in Metro Manila, Cagayan de Oro City and Davao City, during the Easter holiday.

Rohmat claimed a Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrilla was tasked to carry out the bombings and was given P100,000 by the two Abu Sayyaf leaders.

Rohmat said he knew the identity of the MILF guerrilla but was told by Maj. Perfecto Dacarro, the Army’s public information officer, not to reveal it pending follow-up operations.

Sources from the military, however, revealed that a certain Abdul Basit is now the subject of a military manhunt.

During his five-year stay in Mindanao, Rohmat learned how to speak Filipino and the local dialects. His understanding of the language helped him pick up information about the terror plans of the two bandit leaders but he was not privy to specific details.

Rohmat said he had met two of his JI compatriots during his five-year stay. He identified one of them as a certain Dulmatin.

Both were involved in the bombings in Bali that killed 202 mostly foreign tourists, he said.

Rohmat also told the military that some members of the MILF’s 105th Base Command in Central Mindanao had provided safe haven to the Abu Sayyaf leaders.

Rohmat’s claims also bolstered the military’s suspicions that some rogue MILF guerrillas are maintaining terror camps in Central Mindanao.

Muslim religious leaders in the region said there are several more JI militants roaming around, mingling with the populace and renegade MILF forces. —John Unson