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| Southeast Asia |
| US: MILF tied to 2 al-Qaeda affiliates |
| 2005-04-01 |
| US officials have warned that a group of Muslim separatist guerrillas with whom the Philippine government is set to begin peace talks may have ties to two al-Qaeda-linked outfits. The alert over the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) was raised by a delegation of visiting US officials, including Adm. William Fallon, head of the US Pacific Command, according to Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita. President Arroyo's administration is to begin talks with the MILF in Malaysia on April 16. The 12,000-member MILF has been waging an armed campaign since 1978 to set up a Muslim state on the southern third of the mainly Roman Catholic Philippines. "We have been receiving information from the Americans about the link (between) MILF, Jemaah Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf," Ermita said, referring to two Islamic militant groups with alleged ties to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network. Washington has included the Southeast Asia-based Jemaah Islamiyah and the Mindanao-based Abu Sayyaf on its "foreign terrorist organization" blacklist, alongside the communist New People's Army (NPA) which is also mounting a guerrilla campaign in the Philippines. Ermita said the Philippine government suspects that a number of MILF factions may be providing shelter or even training facilities to militant groups in Mindanao. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Fallon said: "I think the government here has a big challenge because there are several groups, several insurgencies that are ongoing." The two allies are pursuing counter-terrorism-oriented joint military training. The next exercises are set to start on the Abu Sayyaf stronghold of Basilan next week. Ermita said Manila asked Washington to refrain from including the MILF on the State Department blacklist for now, to give the peace talks a chance to succeed. "The national government has made it known to the US that maybe we should give the peace process a chance to move forward so we have expressed to them that the MILF should not be included in the list of FTO (foreign terrorist organizations), for the moment," he said. "We have some degree of confidence about how the peace process is moving as far as the MILF is concerned," he added. Manila is observing a 2003 ceasefire with the MILF, with Kuala Lumpur and several other Organization of the Islamic Conference states providing a small list of ceasefire monitors to the south. Peace talks with the NPA's parent organization, meanwhile, have broken down over the US blacklist. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |