2 MILF camps tagged as Asia 'terror center'

From Malaya:

Two training camps of the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front are believed to be the "nerve center" of terrorism in the region, according to an Australian news report.

The report said intelligence documents, compiled from interviews with Mohammad Nassir bin Abbas, a senior Jemaah Islamiah leader, and other sources, belied claims by the Philippine government that the training of MILF rebels by JI militants in the rebel camps stopped four years ago. The report did not identify the two camps.

Nassir reportedly told foreign agents that the 20-year secret alliance of the JI, MILF and Abu Sayyaf has strengthened and that the JI continues to train MILF rebels.

The JI leader's first-hand account is seen as a missing link in decades of suspicion about the potential threat posed by the MILF camps and their infiltration by terrorists.

Nassir claimed that a JI leader named Zulkifli established a relationship with Abu Sayyaf commander Khadaffy Janjalani.

He said Janjalani gave P100,000 to Zulkifli which the latter used to fund the car bombing incident at a Cotabato airport in Mindanao in 2003.

The documents also linked Zulkifli to three other bombings in the southern Philippines over the past 12 months.

Nassir estimated that about 40 JI members were in the Mindanao region in February this year. He said about half stayed at Camp Jabal Quba, which he used to command. Until early 1998, Nassir claims to have trained 540 militants a year.

Lt. Col. Daniel Lucero, Armed Forces information chief, said they have no information on the veracity of the intelligence report.

The information came a few months after an Australian study declared that militancy in the southern Philippines posed the biggest potential security threat to Australia.

According to the white paper, the JI has developed close links to the MILF and the ASG.

The Australian government has expressed concern that the Abu Sayyaf is evolving from a small group of bandits into a full-fledged terrorist group.

This is very troubling.