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| Southeast Asia |
| Bali boomers funded Filippino plot |
| 2005-11-03 |
| Two Indonesian fugitives wanted for the deadly 2002 Bali bombings also financed an aborted plot to bomb the Philippine capital's tourist district earlier this year, Filipino military officials said Wednesday. Military intelligence officials alleged the two provided money to the Rajah Solaiman Movement, a group of Muslim converts, to acquire explosives to bomb the Malate tourist district of Manila during Easter. The pair, Dulmatin and Omar Patek, are alleged members of the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) and officials here believe they are being sheltered by Filipino Islamic militant allies in the southern Philippines. The Manila plot was foiled with the arrest on March 22 of one suspect, Tyrone Santos, whose house yielded 600 kilograms of ammonium nitrate -- a chemical which can be used to make bombs. Dulmatin and Patek are also being sought by Indonesia for the October 2002 bombings in the tourist resort of Bali that claimed 202 lives. "They (Dulmatin and Patek) are involved in the financial (aspect). They were providing the funds" to Santos' group, deputy military intelligence chief Rear Admiral Tirso Danga told reporters. "They (Rajah Solaiman Movement) were the ones to carry that (Malate bombing) out -- they wanted to carry out a bigger attack compared to the one in Bali." A military intelligence operative who asked not to be named said Dulmatin and Patek gave the Santos group 250,000 pesos (about US$4,562) to bomb a Malate nightclub in March. "It was used for the purchase of the chemicals to be used," said the official. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |