MACTAN ISLAND - The Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia must act jointly against the regional militant network Jemaah Islamiah (JI) to dismantle its camps and limit its movements, a security expert said on Friday. Rohan Gunaratna, head of the political violence and terrorism centre at Singapores Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, said Indonesia must ban JI as an organisation and oppose moves to free the groups spiritual leader, Abu Bakar Bashir, in June.
Everything must be done to make sure that he is not released, Gunaratna told reporters on the sidelines of a counter-terrorism forum in the central Philippines. JI has gained very significant strength because it is now working with so many other groups in Indonesia. The Indonesian government must be encouraged to ban JI, he said. JI is still a legal organisation in Indonesia. JI must be criminalised, he added.
He warned that JI, al Qaedas franchise in Southeast Asia, continued to pose a serious threat despite the arrests of senior leaders such as Bashir and Isamuddin Riduan, alias Hambali. Noordin Mohammad Top, a Malaysian suspected of masterminding bombings on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali last year, is believed to have taken over JIs operational leadership. It has a few thousand members around Southeast Asia, including less than 100 in the southern Philippines.
Citing intelligence reports, Gunaratna said JI had training camps in Indonesia and the southern Philippines, producing 400 to 500 potential terrorists every year. Gunaratna, who has written books on al Qaeda and JI, said Southeast Asian states -- particularly the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia -- must cooperate more to defeat terrorism. Those links should include common data bases, an exchange of personnel and joint training and operations, he said, describing these activities as a new format for fighting terrorism.
The United States, Australia and Europe should support the regions counter-terrorism efforts because they have the resources and intelligence networks to check movements of people and funds, Gunaratna said. There are also considerable amounts of money still coming from the Middle East to fund terrorist attacks in Southeast Asia, he said, echoing concerns raised by other experts from 60 countries attending the forum. Ellen Margrethe Loj, head of the U.N. Security Councils counter-terrorism committee, on Thursday urged Southeast Asian states to choke off international funding to stop bomb attacks.
Gunaratna said a small portion of millions of dollars in private funds for religious and relief groups for development projects in poor Muslim communities in the region were diverted to hatred and violence. He said he believed the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the largest Muslim rebel group in the southern Philippines, continued to shelter one of two factions of JI hiding on Mindanao island despite being in peace talks with Manila. The other JI faction, led by Dulmatin and Umar Patek, were working with the smaller but more radical Abu Sayyaf group based on the remote southwestern island of Jolo.
The MILF has constantly lied that it is not harbouring JI, Gunaratna said. MILF leaders must be held accountable for the presence of JI in the southern Philippines. 
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