Muslim Terrorists Tied to 2 Blasts

The Jemaah Islamiah terrorist group, which allegedly carried out the deadly Bali bombing on Oct. 12, is suspected of involvement in two recent blasts in the southern Philippines that killed 37 people, Philippine authorities said Monday.

National police intelligence chief Roberto Delfin said five alleged members of the militant Muslim group are being sought in an April 2 blast in Davao City that killed 16 people near a crowded wharf.

Delfin said the Southeast Asian terrorist network also is suspected in a March 4 bombing that killed 21 people outside the Davao City airport passenger terminal, including Iowa missionary William Hyde.

“We believe it was the same group,” Delfin said in a telephone interview.

Jemaah Islamiah is accused of carrying out dozens of bombings in Southeast Asia since 2000 -- including attacks on malls, churches, priests and a Philippine ambassador -- in a campaign to establish a separatist Islamic state in the region.

The Bali nightclub bombings, which killed 202 people, most of them foreign tourists, was Jemaah Islamiah’s biggest attack.

Authorities say the group is affiliated with Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network, which allegedly has helped finance and direct some of the regional group’s terrorist activities.

More than 100 Jemaah Islamiah members have been arrested in four countries, including many of the suspected Bali bombers, but authorities believe there are many more on the loose. Among the fugitives is Indonesian cleric Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, the group’s alleged operations leader and key link to Al Qaeda.

In recent weeks, there has been a surge of violence in the southern Philippines as the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front, with an army of 12,000, has battled government troops in its effort to establish an Islamic state.

Authorities say that Jemaah Islamiah and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front have been associated for years and that members of the two groups worked together to stage bombings in Manila that killed 22 people in 2000.

Authorities initially blamed the Moro Islamic Liberation Front for the wharf and airport bombings, but its leaders have denied the charge.

Delfin said it now appears that the Davao bombers were part of a subgroup, the Special Urban Terrorist Action Group, that allegedly is connected to Jemaah Islamiah and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Authorities identified the five suspects as Indonesians who go by the names Sulaiman, Nasruddin, Zulkifli, Haj Akhmad and Hamja.

Delfin said Sulaiman is associated with Fathur Rohman Al Ghozi, also known as “Mike the Bombmaker,” a key Jemaah Islamiah terrorist suspect and a former instructor at a Moro Islamic Liberation Front training camp.

Al Ghozi was arrested last year and is accused of involvement in Jemaah Islamiah bombings that killed two dozen people in the Philippines and Indonesia.

Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte charged that the urban action group also has links to Al Qaeda.

“The recent bombing was the handiwork of the Jemaah Islamiah followers here who are also connected with Al Qaeda,” he told reporters over the weekend.

The FBI and the Australian Federal Police, who helped investigate the Bali bombings, have been assisting Philippine police in the Davao City probe.

Authorities in the southern Philippines city of General Santos arrested two Muslim men Monday with more than 220 pounds of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer that can be used to make powerful explosives.

The two denied they are terrorists and said they had planned to use the chemicals to make bombs for illegal fishing.