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COTABATO — Authorities in Mindanao have arrested a Pakistani with alleged links to a Southeast Asian extremist group for making bombs, it was announced yesterday. Muhammand Alpariz was arrested at his apartment in Shariff Kabunsuan province by joint police and military operatives on Tuesday, local 6th Infantry Division spokesman Lt. Col. Julieto Ando said. Found in his possession were "two 60-millimeter mortar shells rigged to improvised explosives devices" and two howitzer shells ready to be attached to similar bombs, said Southern Mindanao police head Chief Superintendent Pedro Tango. "These bombs, if exploded, would cause extensive damage," he added. "He did...

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front has forced about 1,200 Christian farmers to flee from a village in the southern province of Mindanao. This is confirmed by the local police, who withdrew from the area in order to avoid an armed conflict with the rebels. This situation deteriorated last week, when Malaysia withdrew its mediators from the province, the stronghold of the Muslim Filipinos. Garcia, a local farmer, recounts: "The Islamic Front arrived suddenly and claimed their forefathers owned the land we are farming, and at gunpoint told us to leave. Police were not allowed entry, so they backed off to...

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) hailed Sunday the United States Congress's passage of a resolution recognizing the commencement of Ramadan as the holy month of fasting and spiritual renewal. In a statement on its website (www.luwaran.com), the MILF described the US Congress' resolution as an "epoch-making" act that will help stop bigotry and racism against 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide. “This is indeed an epoch-making for the rest of the world to follow suit and recognize this holy month observed by fasting by more than one billion Muslims all over the world," said Sheikh Mohammad Muntassir, chairman of the MILF...

A senior US official on Friday raised the prospect of increasing US military deployments in Mindanao to confront Moro extremists who Washington says threaten regional stability. US Special Forces troops are known to deployed on a rotational basis in the Muslim southwestern portion of the former US colony. Although the 1987 Constitution bars them from actual combat, they have been providing intelligence, equipment, and training to elite troops combating extremist groups such as the Abu Sayyaf and their Jemaah Islamiyah allies from neighboring Indonesia. "We have a very good pace and rhythm of exercises. I think there may be...

MINDANAO, PHILIPPINES - There are so many links between the Abu Sayyaf Group of the Philippines, which beheaded an American hostage a few months ago, and Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network, that on paper they look like the route map for a Peshawar-based airline. The links run from that high, bleak border city in Pakistan to terrorist dens in Afghanistan and Yemen; to murders and bombings in the Philippines; to the first attack on the World Trade Center; to a foiled attempt to assassinate the pope during a 1995 visit to Manila. A captured Abu Sayyaf guerrilla, ...

CHRISTIANS are being recruited by the Abu Sayyaf for future attacks in key areas in Mindanao, a military intelligence office revealed Wednesday. The intelligence report dated September 7 said the recruitment had started sometime in July. The report said the Abu Sayyaf centered its recruitment in Zamboanga City and Basilan, and offered prospective recruits a substantial “salary.” “The recruits were allegedly offered salary [P10,000 to P30,000] to join the group and conduct sabotage operations in Zamboanga City,” said the report. The report also cited the recruitment of Christians in Bunot Village, Indanan, Sulu, Maguindanao, and in Muslim dominant villages...

<p>Just only a quick blurb in the top news segement today, but Mainichi News reports that two elderly Japanese men in their 80s have turned themselves into or otherwise presented themselves to Japanese authorities in the southern Philippines in Mindanao, apparantly "surrendering" or at least talking to them, after holding our for nearly 60 years in the Philippines following Japan's WWII defeat.</p>

Anti-U.S. Terror Threat Grows in Philippines April 21, 2005 By Dan Springer MANILA, Philippines — Security experts see growing signs of a link between Al Qaeda (search) and home-grown terrorists in the Philippines, raising fears that attacks against the United States could be launched from a country that used to be a U.S. colony. "The terrorist threat in the Philippines has gone to a high point, especially with the concentration of Al Qaeda morphed into a group called Jemaah Islamiyah (search)," said Gen. Avelino Razon, director of the Philippine National Police. Intelligence reports indicate that longtime separatist groups that have...

(2ND UPDATE) FOURTEEN soldiers have been killed while over a dozen have been wounded after followers of detained former rebel leader Nur Misuari attacked several military installations in Sulu island on Monday, a military spokesman said. Thirteen soldiers were killed after Misuari's followers and Abu Sayyaf members ambushed Marine Battalion Landing Team 5 in barangay (village) Pansul in Patikul town at 1:35 p.m., Lieutenant Colonel Buenaventura Pascual said. Fourteen other soldiers were wounded in the assault on the military truck, Pascual said. "Pursuit operations are ongoing," the military spokesman said, adding that they had yet to account for rebel casualties....

I read an interesting report this week that said the Philippines was hoping to see a spike in its tourist arrivals after the deadly tsunami killed hundreds of thousands of people in Thailand, Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka on Dec. 26. I did think that it was rather morbid that one country was hoping to cash-in on the calamity of another, but that is normal I guess in terms of human nature. Anyways, the report went on to mention that tourist arrivals in the Philippines in 2005 were projected to reach 2.66 million, up from 2.23 million the year before....

Early this year, amidst military preparations for a war in Iraq, the United States announced it was sending 3,000 soldiers to Mindanao, the southernmost region of the Philippines. FRONTLINE/World correspondent Orlando de Guzman, a Filipino reporter from the north, journeyed to Mindanao, where Muslim rebels are fighting a guerrilla war against the Philippine government -- a war in which the United States may soon be embroiled. read more A Conflicted Land: Rebellions, Wars and Insurgencies in the Philippines For more than a hundred years, the United States has confronted insurgencies in this archipelago nation of 7,100 islands. From the...

PAGADIAN -- Armed men believed to be communist rebels seized a commuter bus and briefly held its passengers before setting it on fire in northwestern Mindanao, police said Tuesday. Twenty suspected New People's Army (NPA) guerrillas on Monday flagged down the vehicle near the town of Tigbao in the Zamboanga peninsula, Provincial Police Director Godofredo de los Santos said. The passengers were let off unharmed before the gunmen torched the bus, he said. The motive for the attack could be extortion, de los Santos said, noting that the owner of the bus has been receiving demands from the NPA to...

TERRORISM is the common enemy threatening the Philippines and the United States and justifies the military actions undertaken in Mindanao and in Iraq, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said Saturday. The President, in her weekly radio message, reiterated earlier statements that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction" might get into the hands of terrorist groups in the Philippines and be used against civilians. "Dito natin makikita ang kaugnayan ng gera sa Iraq at ang aktibong depensa ng mga komunidad laban sa mga naghahasik ng lagim sa Mindanao, (Through this we can see the link between the war in Iraq and...

MANILA, Philippines, Mar 04, 2003 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- A powerful explosion ripped through the waiting area of an airport in the southern Philippines on Tuesday, authorities said. Authorities said they saw many people injured and killed, but could not provide exact figures. Local civil defense chief Susan Madrid said the explosion occurred at the Davao airport on the southern island of Mindanao. Copyright 2003 Associated Press, All rights reserved

KUALA LUMPUR, June 27 (IslamOnline) - Recent raids carried by Muslims in certain areas of Mindanao are raising eyebrows in the military which says they do not know how to deal with the situation, sources close to the Bangsamoro people told IslamOnline. The raids were neither military nor did they involve rebel attacks against military targets; they were mostly in the spirit of an Islamic revival that scares the local authorities the most. A confidential intelligence report obtained by the source said a new movement in Mindanao, called the “Balik Islam” or “Back To Islam” movement is gaining grounds nationwide....