NBI tracing links of teenage gang with Jemaah Islamiyah

COTABATO CITY — The regional office here of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has been monitoring members of a local high school gang believed to have links with cashiered Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) bagman Taufik Refke.

Refke, arrested here last year by plainclothes agents from Camp Crame, was said to have studied at a state-run college here, but officials of the school have denied the report, apparently fazed by the possibility that they could be subjected to scrutiny by the police and military.

Special Agent Tim Rejana, a senior staffer of NBI-Region 12, told reporters they heard of the possible connection between Refke and the so-called No Fear Gang in the main campus of the Cotabato City National High School (CCNHS) while investigating the alleged involvement of a key official there in the fabrication of fake academic records.

"We have gathered sufficient evidence against that school official and we are due to file a corresponding criminal case against him," Rejana said.

He disclosed that it was while gathering evidence against the CCNHS official that they were tipped off by insiders on the alleged link between the No Fear Gang and "certain Indonesians" who, according to informants, could be JI members.

Last year, the local police foiled an attempt to bomb the Dean’s office in the nearby Cotabato City State Polytechnic College, a few meters away from the CCNHS main campus.

The bomb was planted by a student named Montasser Guiday, a confessed member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), who was arrested by policemen while fleeing after he planted the bomb underneath the office table of a teacher who gave him a failing mark in one subject.

Guiday, during interrogation, admitted there were more than 50 of them who had undergone training in handling explosives from foreigners in a camp near the border of Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur.

Guiday, however, was allowed to post bail and has been at large since.

Rejana said they are now validating information fed to them by different sources that the No Fear Gang has links with Refke.

Last Friday, combined operatives of the G-2, the intelligence unit of the 6th Infantry Division and the Army’s 12th Intelligence and Security Unit arrested three suspected Maguindanaon JI operatives in Taviran, a farming community in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao.

The MILF has urged the immediate release of the three men — Sammy Abdulgani, 24; Monta Tonggao, 22; and Datu Puti Ungka, 23, insisting they are active members of the front.

The provincial peace and order council in Maguindanao, in a statement, called on the government and MILF’s joint ceasefire committee to probe the persistent reports on the links of the front with JI.

Last month, immigration agents also arrested here four Turkish missionaries said to have links with international terrorists organizations.