Islamic converts ‘threaten Manila curbs on terror’

The Financial Times, London
20 December 2005

Islamic converts ‘threaten Manila curbs on terror’
By Roel Landingin in Manila
Published: December 20 2005 17:40

A small but well connected group of militant Islamic converts could spoil the Philippine government’s efforts to curb terrorism and to conclude a peace deal with Muslim separatists in the southern Philippines, an influential think-tank has warned.

The International Crisis Group also urged Manila to improve its tactics and avoid sacrificing human rights to what it called “careless counter-terror measures” that generated more sympathy and recruits forthe extremists’ cause.

In a report released on Tuesday, the ICG pointed the finger at theRajah Solaiman Movement, a group of Muslim converts suspected of jihadist tendencies and named after a 16th-century sultan who resisted Spanish incursions in Manila. ICG expected the group to play an increasingly important role in relationships among terror groups in the Philippines.

The biggest Muslim rebel group, the 12,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (Milf), is preparing for a political settlement with Manila in the southern island of Mindanao, and is distancing itself from the south-east Asian terrorist network, Jemaah Islamiah. This is pushing Islamic extremists closer to the more violent Abu Sayyaf groupand increasing the risk of a split within Milf itself.

The ICG said: “The Abu Sayyaf group and Jemaah Islamiah are working increasingly with the Rajah Solaiman Movement of militant converts toIslam based in Manila and northern Luzon, who are a vehicle for more experienced terrorist groups to move into the country’s urban heartland.”Militant Islamic converts are suspected of staging two of the recent terrorist attacks in the Philippines – the Valentine’s Day bombing of a bus in the financial district of Makati that killed four people and the February 2004 explosion that burned and sank a 10,000-tonne ferry, killing 116.

Islamic converts, who were estimated to number about 95,000 in 1995 by Philippine scholars, now numbered 200,000, said the ICG, helping make Islam the fastest growing religion in the Philippines, the only predominantly Christian nation in Asia.

ICG said many of the converts were Filipino workers returning from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Philippine security officials rejected the report’s characterisation of the government’s counter-terror measures as “careless”, saying Manila adhered to human rights and due process in the fight against terrorists.

Ricardo Blancaflor, executive director of the anti-terrorism taskforce, said the government had secured convictions against 27 terror suspects in the past year.