Posted on 10/11/2005 10:36:58 PM PDT by HAL9000
THE UNITED STATES is concerned classified documents allegedly stolen by Leandro Aragoncillo and Michael Ray Aquino may have ended up in the hands of communists, according to an official of the National Bureau of Investigation.Ricardo Diaz, chief of the NBI’s Interpol division, said at a recent meeting that US officials noted that known leftists were at the forefront of so-called destabilization efforts and mass actions in the country.
“They said there was a possibility that the classified government information from the White House and FBI [the Federal Bureau of Investigation] are now in the hands of the local communists like the New People’s Army,” Diaz told reporters yesterday.
Diaz said that as far as the US government was concerned, the NPA, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, was on top of the list of terrorist organizations in the Philippines.
The Interpol chief also said that no administration officials benefited from the Aragoncillo-Aquino espionage activities “as being alleged by some quarters.”
“This was made clear by the [US] Attorney General in his press conference during the same day that Aragoncillo and Aquino were arrested,” Diaz said.
It was also learned at the meeting with US officials that the leaked documents were “selectively chosen” by the beneficiaries in the Philippines.
“It appears that only information unfavorable to the present administration were used while information that was unflattering to the beneficiaries were kept [from the public],” Diaz said.
He said US authorities would likely invoke the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) to gather evidence in the Philippines in the Aragoncillo-Aquino case.
Aragoncillo, a Filipino-American working as an FBI analyst, and Aquino, a fugitive Filipino police colonel, were arrested in the US last month and accused of conspiring to steal classified US government documents which they allegedly passed on to Filipino politicians.
Malacañang on Tuesday dismissed rumors that some Cabinet officials may have been recipients of the information stolen by Aragoncillo from the White House.
Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said Malacañang saw no need to ask any Cabinet official, including Environment Secretary Michael Defensor, who has admitted to having met Aragoncillo when he visited jailed ex-President Joseph Estrada, about the matter.
Defensor on Tuesday said Estrada showed him some of the latter’s copies of the US assessment reports on the Philippines when he visited the disgraced leader in late 2004.
He said Estrada had told him the documents came from the US Central Intelligence Agency.
Ping
From another article:
As they might have expected, they discovered several calls to and from Abu Sayyaf leaders. But another call got their attention. Seventeen hours after the attack that took the life of SFC Jackson, the cell phone was used to place a call to the second secretary of the Iraqi embassy in Manila, Hisham Hussein. It was not Hussein's only contact with Abu Sayyaf.
"He was surveilled, and we found out he was in contact with Abu Sayyaf and also pro-Iraqi demonstrators," says a Philippine government source, who continued, "[Philippine intelligence] was able to monitor their cell phone calls. [Abu Sayyaf leaders] called him right after the bombing. They were always talking."
An analysis of Iraqi embassy phone records by Philippine authorities showed that Hussein had been in regular contact with Abu Sayyaf leaders both before and after the attack that killed SFC Jackson. Andrea Domingo, immigration commissioner for the Philippines, said Hussein ran an "established network" of terrorists in the country. [Hisham] Hussein had also met with members of the New People's Army, a Communist opposition group on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist groups, in his office at the embassy. According to a Philippine government official, the Philippine National Police uncovered documents in a New People's Army compound that indicate the Iraqi embassy had provided funding for the group. Hisham Hussein and two other Iraqi embassy employees were ordered out of the Philippines on February 14, 2003.
------- "Saddam's Philippines Terror Connection," by Stephen F. Hayes, Weekly Standard, 03/18/2006
Thanks for the ping!
''The Emerging Cold War on Asia's High Seas'', February 13, 2006
In recent years, piracy has emerged as a large security concern, especially along the Malacca Straits, which experience 40 percent of the world's piracy.
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It would be relatively easy to cripple shipping along the Malacca Straits given that the 1,015 kilometer-long (630 miles) channel is just 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) wide at its narrowest point. There is a fear that an oil tanker could be used as a floating bomb and piloted into a port city such as Singapore. The decision by the London-based Lloyd's Market Association's Joint War Committee group to classify the Malacca Straits as a "war risk" in June 2004 has further highlighted the threat of piracy and terrorism along the strait. [See: "The Malacca Straits and the Threat of Maritime Terrorism"]
SNIP
China's core maritime interest in the region is to develop a sufficient force to deter Taiwan's declaration of independence, deter and delay U.S. involvement in a potential conflict over Taiwan, and ensure a swift victory in a conflict over the island. Beijing is also interested in securing the narrow Malacca Straits, through which 80 percent of China's oil imports flow, and resolving long-standing maritime territorial disputes in the region.
SNIP
China is also pushing to acquire a national fleet of Very Large Crude Carriers that could be employed in the case of supply disruptions brought on by an accident or terrorist attack along the Malacca Straits or a U.S.-led blockade during a conflict over Taiwan. Currently, only ten percent of China's crude oil imports come aboard Chinese vessels. China's growing anxiety over the security of its oil imports was demonstrated in June 2004 when China conducted its first anti-terrorism exercise simulating an attack on an oil tanker.
"WAR ON TERROR UPDATE OCT 2004", Warships International Fleet Review
America is not being prompted by paranoia, but by hard intelligence. The Australian government claims that Al-Qaeda could be planning to attack Southeast Asia's shipping lanes, including the Malacca Straits, using a dirty bomb. Al-Qaeda's interest in attacking shipping targets came to light during the interrogation of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashri, an alleged terrorist specialising in maritime operations. The group reportedly had conducted video surveillance of Malaysian police patrols along the Straits of Malacca, confirming their potential interest in the waterway. Southeast Asia is also home to the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the regional chapter of Al-Qaeda, accused of the deadly bomb attacks in Indonesia and the Philippines.
On top of this, the International Maritime Bureau's (IMB's) monitoring shows that piracy is focused in the South Pacific near Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines.
SNIP
Free passage through the Malacca Straits is key to the well-being of international commerce.
For example, seaborne oil largely follows fixed maritime routes, which encompass geographic choke points or narrow channels, such as the Malacca Straits, linking the Indian Ocean (and oil coming from the Middle East) with the Pacific Ocean (and major consumer markets in Asia). According to the UN's International Maritime Organisation, at least 50,000 ships sail through the Malacca Straits every year. They transport about 30 per cent of the world's trade goods and 80 per cent of Japan's oil needs.
The last thing Japan wants is disruption in this part the world. The Malacca, Sunda and Lambok Straits are all potential maritime choke points for the Japanese economy. Tokyo has taken every step to safe-guard its oil, natural gas, coal and beef supplies. This year Japan and Indonesia reached agreement over counter-terrorism co-operation, suppressing terrorist funding, sharing intelligence and enhancing general security and immigration controls.
Ping.
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