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American Action Is Held Likely in Asia
nytimes.com
By TIM WEINER
October 10, 2001
WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 — Terrorists tied to Osama bin Laden's network and based in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia are among the likely targets of future covert and overt American actions, United States officials said today.
The officials gave no timetable; they said the campaign against the groups linked to Mr. bin Laden and his group, Al Qaeda, is global and may last for years. But they said that the East Asian groups have expanded their operations in recent years, exchanging money, personnel, materiel and experience with the bin Laden organization and its allies, and that they pose a clear and present danger to American institutions overseas.
"There has been a concerted effort by bin Laden and his people to expand their activities in East Asia, not only in the Philippines but in Malaysia and Indonesia," a United States official said. "The Philippines have become a major operational hub, and it's a serious concern. People linked to bin Laden are not only in Manila but elsewhere in the Philippines."
The groups have thrived in the political and economic instability in the Philippines, a predominantly Roman Catholic country, and in Indonesia, which is predominantly Muslim; street protests against the airstrikes on Afghanistan took place today outside the American embassies in both countries. In recent years, the fundamentalist groups have gained adherents in the name of a holy war against American institutions and influence, officials said.
The United States ambassador to the United Nations, John D. Negroponte, told the Security Council on Monday that the United States, acting in self-defense after the Sept. 11 attacks, may take "further actions with respect to other organizations and other states."
Mr. Negroponte, an American ambassador to the Philippines in the 1990's, cited no groups or states by name. But administration officials have said repeatedly that Mr. Bin Laden has adherents and allies all over the world, and that the war against them will range far beyond Afghanistan. East Asia, and particularly the Philippines, officials said, is an area where terrorists who have struck the United States before are known to have planned their attacks.
Militant Islamic groups in East Asia — chief among them, the Abu Sayyaf group, based in the Philippines — are high on the list of American counter-terrorism targets to come, officials said today.
Hundreds of Abu Sayyaf fighters are battling the Philippine army on Basilan, an island in the south. The group has taken two American hostages: Martin and Gracia Burnham, missionaries from Wichita, Kan.
The Burnhams were celebrating their 18th wedding anniversary in May, when they and a third American, Guillermo Sobero of Corona, Calif., were kidnapped from a resort on Palawan, a large western island of the Philippine archipelago. Mr. Sobero may be dead, officials said.
The Abu Sayyaf group, which is on the official United States list of terrorist organizations, has obtained millions of dollars in ransom from kidnapping tourists, missionaries and resort workers. Libyan representatives played a role in the release of some hostages for ransom, State Department officials said.
The group has used ransom money to buy weapons and speedboats, to pay recruits and to bribe Philippine soldiers, American officials suspect.
Members of Abu Sayyaf, which says it is fighting for a separate Islamic nation, have links to the bin Laden organization, officials said.
The leader of the group is known as Abdujarak Abubakar Janjalani. He is a Filipino Muslim who has said he fought alongside the Afghan rebels battling the Soviet invaders of Afghanistan during the 1980's.
Al Qaeda's connections in the Philippines include Islamic schools and charities through which millions of dollars have flowed to support the group and its allies across South and East Asia, officials said.
They include the International Islamic Relief Organization office and Al Makdum university in Zamboanga, a city on the island of Mindanao, just north of Basilan island. Mr. bin Laden's brother-in-law, Mohammed Jalal Khalifa, was an administrator at both institutions. Neither is operating any longer, and Mr. Khalifa was arrested by the Saudi government after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Also since the attacks, Philippine intelligence officers have arrested two suspected Abu Sayyaf commanders and several men they described as foreigners carrying bombs. Malaysia has charged the son of a leading opposition politician with plotting to overthrow the government. Indonesia has imprisoned two Malaysians in connection with a series of bombings.
In Indonesia, armed Islamic fundamentalist groups have received money, men and arms from the bin Laden group and its allies, officials said. One group, Laskar Jihad, they said, has been reinforced by Taliban guerrillas. Another, the Islamic Defenders Front, is threatening violence against American officials and organizations.
Some members of Al Qaeda have transited through the international airport at Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, officials said. One of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Khalid Al-Midhar, was videotaped at a terrorist meeting in Kuala Lumpur in January 2000.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines said recently that "traces of relationship" exist between the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas and the Sept. 11 attack plotters. She has offered the United States airspace and the use of two large former United States military installations, the Clark Air Base, and the Subic Bay naval base, for transit and staging operations.
The offer was secured in a meeting at Subic Bay two weeks ago between Adm. Thomas Fargo, commander of the Pacific Fleet, and Rolio Golez, the Philippine national security adviser, both 1970 graduates of the United States Naval Academy.
President Bush is scheduled to discuss the counter-terrorism campaign with the presidents of the Philippines and Indonesia and the prime minister of Malaysia in Shanghai on Oct. 19 at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting.
Terrorists aiming to attack the United States have been based in the Philippines for years.
Ramzi Yousef, a convicted ringleader in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, plotted in Manila to blow up 11 jumbo jets headed for the United States. He was arrested in Pakistan at a rooming house financed by Mr. bin Laden. His roommate in Manila, Abdul Hakim Murad, had a commercial pilot license and plotted to crash a jet into the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Virginia.
And Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, convicted in the 1998 bombing of the United States Embassy in Nairobi, was a student in the Philippines when he first came to the bin Laden organization.
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