Philippine troops killed nine prisoners and are hunting nearly a dozen suspected Islamic militants after a weekend jailbreak that has embarrassed the govern-ment ahead of closely contested elections.
The escape by 53 prisoners, including 23 Abu Sayyaf suspects, in a southern rebel stronghold came as a newspaper reported that the US had urged the Philippines to step up its fight against terror groups.
The New York Times said US diplomats had met President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo last month to tell her that the government was not doing enough against terror threats, in what it said was a similar warning to that given to Indonesia before the 2002 Bali bombing.
US Charge d'Affairs Joseph Mussomeli denied the report yesterday, saying the meeting had been a regular security briefing.
"The use of terms like reproach or reprimand are just silly," he said on television.
Arroyo, who has built her presidency on firm support for the US war on terror, also said there had been no reproach.
"Those who are talking about fictitious diplomatic reproaches or anything of the sort only want this partnership to fail, and they are playing into the hands of the terrorists," Arroyo said in a statement.
As of yesterday, nine prisoners had been killed, 27 recaptured, while 17 remained at large including 10 suspected militants.
Saturday's violent jailbreak on southern Basilan island came after a series of apparent successes against the Abu Sayyaf, once linked to al Qaeda but which is more notorious for kidnappings.
Late last month, the government announced it had broken up an Abu Sayyaf cell which had been planning major terror attacks in Manila, arresting six suspected militants and seizing explosives.
Two days before the jail break, the military said soldiers killed six Abu Sayyaf members, including a top leader, in a shoot-out in Basilan, which is close to Mindanao.
The mass break-out threatens to undo any boost to Arroyo's image from the Manila arrests as she runs neck-and-neck with movie star Fernando Poe Jr in opinion polls.
It was not the first incident to expose lax security in Philippine jails. Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, a suspected bomb-maker for regional terror group Jemaah Islamiah, walked out of a Manila jail last July before being killed by police three months later.
Local officials said the Basilan escape began after a prisoner's wife smuggled in a gun hidden in a food package. After overpowering several guards and seizing more guns, the prisoners were able to shoot their way out.
"We suspect they are now hiding in the middle part of the island," military spokesman Daniel Lucero said, referring to the prisoners still at large.
"We feel they are now in the process of making contact with their co-members in the Abu Sayyaf," he said.
The military has blamed local officials for the break-out, while the interior ministry and police have said the prison was not under their jurisdiction.
"All this handwashing doesn't reassure the Filipino citizen of his or her safety or the world about our being a safe nation," wrote Max Soliven, publisher of the Philippine Star newspaper.
Many analysts had considered the Abu Sayyaf to be a spent force, weakened by internal feuds and a US-assisted military campaign against the group after the Sept. 11 attacks. The US still has several hundred troops based in Mindanao to train Philippine soldiers in counter-terrorism.
Manila-based security consultant Rex Roble said Washington needed reasons to maintain its presence there: "They are there to stop the southern backdoor from being used by terrorist groups because they are more concerned with developments in Indonesia."
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion