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ZAMBOANGA CITY: The military on Friday warned that terrorists may
launch a series of attacks on Metro Manila in retaliation for the
killing of a Jemaah Islamiah bomber in the country’s troubled
Mindanao region.
Army Maj. Gen. Fernando Mesa said
the Indonesia-based terror group is plotting to bomb key areas in
the Philippines’ premier region.
Radio and television reports
quoted mesa as saying that the alleged plot was unearthed by
military intelligence.
“Citing information reaching
him, Mesa said the [terror group’s] targets in Metro Manila
include the United States Embassy and other foreign embassies, the
Light and Metro Rail Transit systems, oil depots, bus terminals,
shopping malls, piers, airports, and other soft targets,”
according to a report by GMA 7 television.
Military officials in Southern
Philippines had said soldiers recovered the body of man thought to
be of Dulmatin in Tawi-Tawi Province last week.
But DNA tests by the Philippine
National Police and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation have yet
confirm whether the body was really that of Dulmatin, allegedly a
planner of the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, including
88 Australians, 25 Britons and seven US Americans.
Another Bali bomber, Umar Patek,
is believed hiding in Sulu Province or Tawi-Tawi under the
protection of the local Abu Sayyaf, a group of extremists engaged in
kidnapping.
Earlier this month, Philippine
authorities claimed to have uncovered a plot by the Jemaah Islamiah,
the Abu Sayyaf, the communist New People’s Army and the Moro
Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to assassinate President Gloria
Arroyo. The MILF denied the allegation.
--Al Jacinto
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