Local execs deny presence of foreign-trained bomber in Mindanao

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Moro and Christian local executives in Central Mindanao do not believe there is a foreign-trained “mad bomber” named Basit Usman roaming around, planning to bomb high-value targets.

Some mayors in the adjoining Maguindanao, North Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat provinces were irked by insinuations that Usman is again hiding in Central Mindanao after being reported on Jan. 22, 2010 by the British Broadcasting Corporation as "killed" in a United States drone strike on the mountain ranges separating the South and North Waziristan tribal regions at the Pakistani-Afghan border.

Usman was even reported by the military as "wounded" in an encounter last month with combined combatants of the Army's 45th Infantry Battalion and the 1st Mechanized Brigade in Mamasapano, Maguindanao. Community leaders, among them clerics, refuted the report, confirming that Usman was nowhere in the scene of the encounter, and that he was even virtually unknown to villagers.

Usman, said to have undergone training on fabrication of improvised explosives in Peshawar, Pakistan and in Kandahar, Afghanistan during the late 1980s, is reportedly just waiting for an opportunity to strike at selected targets in Mindanao.

“Imposibleng nandito siya sa Central Mindanao na di malalaman ng mga barangay officials. Malalaman at malalaman din. Napakahirap paniwalaang nandito siya. Nai-report na siyang napatay ng noong 2010 sa Pakistan,” said a local executive, who asked not to be identified.

The police and the military in Mindanao have been asserting since last week that Usman is hiding somewhere in the region, training recruits while planning to perpetrate bombings once he would have the chance.

Members of the local business communities are worried of the impact to the region’s business climate of what is for them a “wild report” about Usman’s alleged presence in Central Mindanao. 

“That is something that the government and MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) ought to jointly validate and address,” said a Chinese grains trader, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The government and the MILF, under the July 1997 Agreement on General Cessation of Hostilities, are to mutually cooperate in addressing peace and security issues in potential flashpoint areas in Mindanao.

A Moro human rights lawyer had told The Star there is a need for the national government to investigate deeper on the real persona of Usman, an ethnic Maguindanaon.

“I’ve handled human rights cases that stemmed from bombings, cases that permeated in Metro Manila, and in different parts of Mindanao and the name of Basit Usman was mentioned in so many of those cases,” the lawyer said.

Usman, said to have ties with the Taliban, first hogged the headlines about a decade ago when he was arrested by policemen somewhere in Sarangani province, as a suspect in deadly bomb attacks in Central Mindanao.

He was detained in a police detachment in a coastal town in Sarangani, where his custodians even utilized him both as a cook and an errand. He eventually escaped about a year after his arrest, while doing on a marketing chore.

Usman was last reported to have pulled off about a dozen more attacks in Mindanao, before the BBC reported he was killed in a US drone attack on June 14, 2010 at the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan.