Terrorists tied to Osama bin Laden's network and based in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia are among the likely targets of future covert and overt American actions, US officials said today.
The officials gave no timetable; they said the campaign against the groups linked to bin Laden and his group, al-Qaeda, is global and may last for years. But they said that the East Asian groups have expanded their operations in recent years, exchanging money, personnel, materiel and experience with the bin Laden organization and its allies, and that they pose a clear and present danger to American institutions overseas.
"There has been a concerted effort by bin Laden and his people to expand their activities in East Asia, not only in the Philippines but in Malaysia and Indonesia," a US official said. "The Philippines have become a major operational hub, and it's a serious concern. People linked to bin Laden are not only in Manila but elsewhere in the Philippines."
The groups have thrived in the political and economic instability in the Philippines, a predominantly Roman Catholic country, and in Indonesia, which is predominantly Muslim. Street protests against the airstrikes on Afghanistan took place today outside the US embassies in both countries. In recent years, the fundamentalist groups have gained adherents in the name of a holy war against American institutions and influence, officials said.
The US ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, told the Security Council on Monday that the US, acting in self-defense after the Sept. 11 attacks, may take "further actions with respect to other organizations and other states."
Negroponte, an American ambassador to the Philippines in the 1990s, cited no groups or states by name. But administration officials have said repeatedly that bin Laden has adherents and allies all over the world, and that the war against them will range far beyond Afghanistan. East Asia, and particularly the Philippines, officials said, is an area where terrorists who have struck the US before are known to have planned their attacks.
Militant Islamic groups in East Asia -- chief among them, the Abu Sayyaf group, based in the Philippines -- are high on the list of American counter-terrorism targets to come, officials said Tuesday.
Hundreds of Abu Sayyaf fighters are battling the Philippine army on Basilan, an island in the south. The group has taken two American hostages: missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham.
The Burnhams were celebrating their 18th wedding anniversary in May, when they and a third American, Guillermo Sobero, were kidnapped from a resort on Palawan, a large western island of the Philippine archipelago. Sobero may be dead, officials said.
The Abu Sayyaf group, which is on the official US list of terrorist organizations, has obtained millions of dollars in ransom from kidnapping tourists, missionaries and resort workers. Libyan representatives played a role in the release of some hostages for ransom, State Department officials said.
The group has used ransom money to buy weapons and speedboats, to pay recruits and to bribe Philippine soldiers, American officials suspect.
Members of Abu Sayyaf, which says it is fighting for a separate Islamic nation, have links to the bin Laden organization, officials said.
The leader of the group is known as Abdujarak Abubakar Janjalani. He is a Filipino Muslim who has said he fought alongside the Afghan rebels battling the Soviet invaders of Afghanistan during the 1980s.
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