Let’s hope our boy Al-Ghozi wasn’t the guy who blasted the Jakarta Marriott yesterday

Perhaps I was wrong. I’ve been insisting all along that "escaped" Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi hadn’t skipped off abroad, but remained here in the Philippines – where it’s safer for him, since he’s apparently got so many friends in the police and who- knows-where-else.

Yesterday’s atrocity in Jakarta, the capital of one of our nearest neighbors, the world’s most populous Muslim nation Indonesia (220 million), startled me into second thoughts about the whereabouts of that murderous renegade. It was a classic al-Ghozi caper: a car-bomb blowing up half the front façade of the 5-star J.W. Marriott Hotel in the Indonesian capital’s business district, killing 10, some of them foreigners, and wounding more than 83.

It’s already apparent that Al-Baby’s JI terrorist group, an offspring of al-Qaeda, was behind the bomb attack. The timing of the bomb-outrage is ominous. Tomorrow or the next day, Amrozi, one of the principal-plotters arrested for the October 2002 Bali Bombing which killed over 200 holiday revelers, the majority of the victims Australians, is supposed to be sentenced by an Indonesian court – and expected to receive the maximum penalty of capital punishment. Was the bomb blast intended to scare the judges? To destabilize the government of President Megawati Sukarnoputri? To intimidate those carrying out Muslim Indonesia’s determined anti-terrorist campaign? The permutations and implications are numerous.

Since so many Jemaah Islamiyah bomb-makers, leaders, and militants have been picked up in connection with that Bali bomb-massacre, as well as the deadly Christmas bombings in December 2000 in which Catholic churches were attacked, the JI needed "reinforcements". I trust, al-Ghozi – for whom we’re responsible, since we let him get away – wasn’t one of them.

We must remember that the JI has every motive to step up the pressure, since the fanatical group’s accused "chairman" and religious leader, the fiery, fiercely bearded 65-year old Islamic cleric, Abubakar Ba’asyir, is also in jail, probably facing sentence not long from now.

After all, al-Ghozi is an Indonesian and knows the turf in Jakarta very well. He’s been accused of being behind the bombing of our Philippine Embassy there, which almost killed but instead seriously injured our recently-retired Ambassador Leonides Caday. In a scenario eerily like yesterday’s Marriott Hotel explosion, a powerful car bomb exploded on August 1, 2000, just outside our envoy’s diplomatic residence in an upscale Jakarta neighborhood. The blast completely wrecked Caday’s Mercedes-Benz as it was turning into the driveway and killed two people outside, plus injuring 22 passers-by. It had been concealed in a van parked outside – and was so powerful it damaged not only Caday’s house, but several nearby homes where other diplomats, politicians and business leaders lived.

As you can see, al-Ghozi was never some country bumpkin or amateur – he was one of JI’s most accomplished bomb-makers and an expert in terrorist organization. The Jakarta blast yesterday had his fingerprints or that of some persons very much like him. The newsreels of the wrecked front facade of the hotel were flashed all over the planet by Cable News Network (CNN), British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC), Channel News Asia, and the other global networks. For a while, the news even unsettled the London footsies, and, across the Channel, the European Continent’s bourses and stock exchanges.

Take a look at those disconcerting TV footages, film clips and news photos of the devastated Marriott which, by the way, is located very near several embassies and consulates.

If the Sunday July 27th Makati mutineers had blown up the Oakwood, Glorietta, Rustan’s, Inter-Con and Shoemart, the world would have seen far worse scenes of destruction and carnage, including the many certain to be killed in an all-out firefight – with armored cars from Simbas to Skorpions and other heavy ordinance punching in.

I think we ought to be thanking God Almighty, Allah, Buddha, all the Saints in heaven – and don't forget Mother Mary – and the gods of common sense and mercy, instead of this constant griping, sniping, bitching, dakdak and ek-eking. God must love fools and Filipinos – He made so many of them. Us Ilocanos included.

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The confirmed death of the leader of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the longtime rebel known as Ustadz Hashim Salamat (also called Salamat Hashim, depending on which newspaper or book you’re reading), doesn’t necessarily mean that under Hashim’s perceived successor, Al Haj Murad (a civil engineer, it’s being announced), the MILF will have a gentler approach and image.

True enough, the MILF’s big mouth, Eid Kabalu, has been reprimanded and reportedly lost his job as the insurgent organization’s spokesman. He’d, perhaps, grown into too much of a media favorite and become known as more of a celebrity than as a dedicated jihadi. Mish mumkin. Eid, old pal – unless you believe in the Resurrection.

If anything, I believe it was Salamat who was the more moderate, although he headed such a murderous outfit with well-proven links to the Jemaah Islamiyah and originally ran, and reportedly, continues to maintain training camps for foreign Islamic terrorists and mujahideen in central Mindanao.

Salamat, who allegedly succumbed to heart failure weeks ago, was born on July 7, 1942, in Pagalungan, Maguindanao, one of seven children.

According to his biography, in 1958, he had joined a group of pilgrims who journeyed for the Hajj – the annual great Muslim pilgrimage to the holiest city of Islam, Makkah. In Saudi Arabia, he tarried for sometime and studied under Sheikh Zawawi, where he probably imbibed the fundamentalist teachings of Wahhabism, the "puritanical" version of Islam fostered by the Saudi royal family. He is said to have regularly attended the halaqat held at the Masjid al Haram and had enrolled in the Madrasat as-Sulatiyah ad-Diniyah.

Going to Cairo in 1959, on a Nasser-funded scholarship, Salamat graduated from the famous university of al-Azhar’s Ma’had al-Bunuth al-Islamiyyah as-Sanawiyyah in 1963, then went on to earn a Bachelor’s degree in 1967 from its college of Theology (majoring in Philosophy and Religion). He acquired a Master’s degree in the same place in 1969, and would have earned a Doctorate had he completed his doctoral dissertation.

Instead, Salamat abandoned the academe to return to Mindanao to help organize the revolutionary Bangsamoro movement. (Don’t think he didn’t pick up his belligerent credentials in Cairo either – since, at that time, Egypt’s capital was the center of political activism and Arab militancy in the Middle East.)

I met a couple of his former Arab classmates over the past few years (one of them, an important clerical figure in Cairo) and they told me that Salamat had been very active among the Bangsamoro students in Egypt, and had even been elected Secretary-General of the Asian Students in Cairo, meaning Muslims from Asia engaged in studies and research there. He had been greatly influenced by radical thinkers, Syed Qutb (whose writings made their stamp on his political outlook and Islamic activism) and Syed Abul A’la Maududi, who, it’s said, inspired him to promote Islamic revolution at home.

His Malaysian connections were also very well-established. According to Nasser A. Marohomsalic, who wrote Aristocrats of the Malay Race: A History of the Bangsa Moro in the Philippines, in the first two months of 1969, ninety – yes, 90 – Muslim youths "were secretly shipped to Malaysia and trained for more than a year in Palau Pangkor; 41 of whom were Maranaos, 18 Maguindanaons, and 31 from Sulu, Zamboanga, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi".

They were known as the "Top 90". Seven of these "Top 90" "secretly organized themselves into a committee to provide leadership for the group, according to Marohomsalic, a pro-Bangsamoro writer. These were, Chairman Nur Misuari. Then came Abdul Khayr Alonto (my compadre, by the way) who was once portrayed as a leading insurgent leader years ago on the front cover of TIME or NEWSWEEK, I forget which. Alonto was vice-chairman of the core group.

Members were Jimmy Lucman, Caloy Bandaying, Uroh Salahuddin, Ramit Hassan and Salih Walih.

"After the declaration of Martial Law on September 21, 1972," the book’s author recounts (on page 166), "the membership of the central committee was expanded to include Ahmad ‘Bong’ Sumandal, Ali ‘Clay’ Sansaluna, Amelil ‘Ronnie’ Malguiok, Salamat Hashim, Dimasangkay ‘Dimas’ Pundato and Bian Lay Lim."

The first batch of 90 Moro youths, returning to Mindanao in the early part of 1971, after a year of training in Malaysia, "embarked on recruitment and training in their respective home bases".

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Although Misuari and Salamat started out together in the top echelons of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), by mid-1976 Salamat was already angrily complaining about Misuari-led Tausog dominance in the MNLF’s Central Committee, and the lack of representations of Maranaos and Maguindanaons (his provincemates) in the MNLF’s Finance Committee – where the big bucks were being dispensed at the whim of Misuari and his loyalists.

He was also being excluded from international conferences, despite his being a fluent Arabic-speaker and his English-language proficiency.

Salamat formally pronounced his irreconcilable break with Misuari on December 26, 1977 – and raised the banner of MILF militancy.

The rest you know. The MILF, with its claimed 10,000 guerrillas, is now the dominant insurgent force in Mindanao. And to think that the "friendly" Malaysians are the ones sponsoring the coming peace talks for the umpteenth time in Kuala Lumpur.

Well, let’s see. As I’ve said – we always hope and pray for peace. But as long as there are well-armed men roving Mindanao beyond the writ of law, we can never have peace.