By Emma-Kate Symons in Manila
October 02, 2006 12:46am

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599...3-1702,00.html

A NETWORK of homegrown converts to radical Islam has emerged as a major terrorist threat in South-East Asia, teaming up with higher-profile al-Qaeda offshoots Jemaah Islamiah and Abu Sayyaf to plot attacks on Western and local targets.

Manila's top anti-terrorism official has told The Australian that the group of former Christians known as Rajah Solaiman is highly educated and well-financed and lacked the profile of traditional Islamist terrorist groups, making it easier to evade detection.

His warning came as Indonesian and Australian mourners remembered the 20 people killed in JI's last major terror attacks, at Jimbaran Bay and Kuta in Bali a year ago yesterday.

Terrorist experts believe that while JI has suffered some significant setbacks in the past 12 months, its alliance with southern Philippines groups such as Rajah Solaiman mean it is still a potent force.

The Australian understands that Canberra is closely monitoring the pursuit of Rajah Solaiman, which shares JI's goal of a pan-Islamic state in Asia.

Rajah Solaiman has direct links to al-Qaeda's leadership and to JI's 2002 Bali bombers Umar Patek, who was killed last month, and Dulmatin, who is still on the run in the war-torn southern Philippines.

Philippines defence undersecretary Ricardo Blancaflor said Rajah Solaiman was hiding out in the country's impenetrable south, conducting joint training exercises and plotting terror attacks with its JI and Abu Sayyaf allies.

Mr Blancaflor said Rajah Solaiman was a "classic case of homegrown terrorism" that could be compared to Australia's problems with small extremist groups of Lebanese Muslim migrants.

"These homegrown terrorists are messengers of hate - hate of the West and of Christianity," he said.
"We have to understand that terrorism today goes way beyond al-Qa'ida, it has no boundaries and no geographical limits."

He called on Australia to support a UN blacklist of the new force, which is understood to have carried out JI's orders in executing the 2004 Philippines SuperFerry bombing that killed 116 people - the second-worst terrorist attack in South-East Asia after the 2002 Bali bombs.

Rajah Solaiman's name is taken from a 16th-century Filipino king, a Muslim, who was the last of the homegrown monarchs before the Spanish conquest. Australian authorities believe it poses a significant threat not only to Philippine interests, but also to Western interests abroad, including Australia's - from foreign embassies to shopping malls, passenger ferries and nightclubs popular with Western tourists.

Rajah Solaiman leader Ahmed Santos, captured late last year in Mindanao, even sheltered Patek and Dulmatin at his family farm in the southern Philippines, where JI, Rajah Solaiman and Abu Sayyaf operatives established a joint training camp, where bomb-making was taught.

Santos converted to Islam in the 1990s via the Islamic Studies Call and Guidance, a group linked by US intelligence to Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law Mohammed Jamal Khalifa.

Dulmatin and Abu Sayyaf leader Khaddafy Janjalani and members of Rajah Solaiman have managed to evade capture despite the sustained US-backed Philippines military offensive in Mindanao and the Sulus. This has been under way since August 1, and has led to the deaths of at least 15 Philippines soldiers and dozens of militants.

The US has offered a $10 million bounty for the capture of Dulmatin, the Malaysian explosives expert who is believed to have planned the 2002 Kuta attacks.
Last month, on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US, a leaked Philippines intelligence report said two Rajah Solaiman explosives experts had arrived in Manila.

This followed arrests of three Muslim converts in May, suspected of planning to bomb malls and foreign embassies in Manila.

The Philippines military has been attacking southern rebels since August 1, with the support of the US, in an operation that has resulted in the deaths of more than a dozen Filipino soldiers and perhaps dozens of rebels.

"One of our aims is to make the southern Philippines as inhospitable for these guys as possible. So we have them on the run," Mr Blancaflor said. "And if we have them on the run we are going to catch them sooner or later."

He also called on Canberra and Manila to go further with a military pact currently before the Philippines Senate, which would see Australian troops conducting training exercises in the country's south.

"The agreement needs to go beyond the military," Mr Blancaflor said. "The defence agreement is the usual stuff - guns, boats and armaments. But the agreement should also have non-military stuff - like desktop computers and communications equipment.

In Jakarta, a former senior JI member warned that more attacks by terror leader Noordin Top could not be ruled out, as police admitted they still had no idea where Indonesia's most wanted man was hiding.

Nasir Abas, a Malaysian whose sister Farida is married to death-row Bali bomber Ali Ghufron, warned that while Top's ability to conduct large attacks had been diminished as the police net around him tightened, he remained in control of an unknown number of small cells that could still launch effective strikes.

"Noordin's potential to conduct a major bombing is quite small, since Azahari's gone, as has Jabir, so that the number of people he could use (in an operation) is diminished," Mr Abas said.

"However I would also point out that his intention is to murder people - and that doesn't have to be a big operation. His ability has been reduced but his desire to kill has never diminished."

Mr Abas has been a key source of information on JI since his defection from the organisation after being arrested in 2003.

Mr Abas cast some doubt on a recent leaked US intelligence report suggesting JI was acquiring the ability to spread further across the archipelago and possibly launch attacks against US allies including Australia.

"Well, that's according to them," Mr Abas said, pointing out that the active terror elements in JI were now more focused on small cells operating independently of each other under Top's direction. "Just as with the second Bali bombing, they continue to be directly organised by Noordin," he said. "He is the big boss, with (Abu Bakar) Bashir continuing to be revered as a leader of the movement."

These cells, if they are indeed planning attacks, are doing so under the radar of national and international intelligence agencies, who admit they have no indication there is a strike being planned for the current so-called "bombing season".

However, it was precisely one such cell, answering directly to Noordin, that carried out the triple suicide bombings in Kuta and Jimbaran exactly a year ago, much to the surprise of those whose job it was to anticipate such things.

Jag