Her Other Problem — page 2

But in recent months a consensus has been growing among intelligence officials in the region that those facilities are operating again, providing critical refuge and training for an organization still reeling from the arrests of dozens of its key members in the last year-and-a-half. This is not a matter of a ragtag band playing war games in the jungle. Senior intelligence officials—including those from the Philippines—say privately that JI has at least one and possibly two well-established camps in Mindanao at which groups of about 30 recruits undergo structured training in weaponry, bombmaking and evading capture. According to a senior Indonesian police source, one such base is Camp Jabal Quba, a facility located in central Mindanao that he says completed its latest round of terrorist teachings in May. It comes as no surprise that exactly the same area was pinpointed by Muklis in his confession as being the site of a "detail" of guards watching over a camp that houses a large number of foreigners.

The importance of such camps to JI's continued existence cannot be exaggerated, say terrorism experts and intelligence officials. "Without them, JI would collapse," says Rohan Gunaratna, author of a book called Inside al-Qaeda. "Given the number of operatives who have been captured, JI needs these bases to replenish its losses." Zachary Abuza, who wrote Crucible of Terror, a forthcoming study of JI, concurs: "So long as the MILF gives these guys a base area to retreat to, there will be a terrorism problem in Southeast Asia."

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo remains stubbornly agnostic on the topic of JI camps. When asked about the possibility that MILF camps were still being used to train terrorists, she said in an interview with TIME last week: "If there's a grand deception, then it will be revealed during the peace talks." For its part, the MILF insists it's merely a separatist group with legitimate grievances and flatly denies that there are—or have ever been—JI training camps on its territory. Eid Kabalu, an MILF spokesman, even denies that Muklis has any connection to the MILF, much less that he was the commander of a "Special Operations Group" or terrorist strike force, as Muklis told his interrogators. "He is not an MILF member," says Kabalu. "We don't know him."

It isn't hard to decipher why both sides in this bloody (the fighting has caused several hundred deaths so far this year) and economically crippling conflict are insistent on turning a blind eye to the existence of the JI camps. Manila is already under enormous pressure from its regional neighbors and its most important trading partner and ally, the U.S., to improve its record in combating terrorism. Despite successes such as the arrest of Muklis, Manila's security forces have a record marred by incompetence and corruption, which makes the country the weakest link in the regional front battling Islamic militancy. Those problems were painfully exposed in mid-July when Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, the self-confessed accomplice with Muklis in the bombing of a Manila commuter train in December 2000 that claimed 22 lives, strolled out of the country's highest-security prison. "The Philippine [police] have problems of low professionalism, low discipline and poor loyalty to the government," says the senior Indonesian police source.

1 | 2 | 3 | Next

	Terrorism Released [July 21, 2003] Criticism falls on Manila's security apparatus as JI bombmaker escapes First Bali, now Davao [March 13, 2003] The bombing at an airport in the Philippines shows the threat that terrorists still pose in Asia The Philippines' Terrorist Refuge [February 17, 2003] Mindanao's Islamic separatists are back to harboring and training the region's terrorists The Long Goodbye [January 6, 2003] Arroyo vows to step aside in 2004, but the Philippine President's self-sacrifice might backfire More Related Items | Search all issues of TIME Magazine