The non-descript, ramshackle house in the southern Philippine city of Cotabato yielded some very unusual secrets.
Police who stormed the house last week said they found a bombmaker's compendium, including blasting caps and gunpowder residue, side by side with copies of the Koran and manuals with titles such as "Jihad in the Philippines."
The government, now on the trail of 30 suspected militants it says escaped before the raid, maintains the hideout was used by the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) regional network, blamed for last year's devastating Bali bombs and linked to the al-Qaeda terror group.
Some currency analysts said the peso's fall to two-month lows last week was partly out of concern that JI was becoming a major threat.
But is it really?
There has been no big terror attack in Manila since a series of bombings in December 2000, which were linked to JI, and no major violence in the country since a bomb ripped through a crowded market in southern Mindanao province in May.
If JI is targeting the Philippines, it certainly has not been very successful.
Some analysts conclude the threat, while real, is not as big as it used to be and is being played up to the full by the armed forces and a government keen to win US military aid.
"A lot of it has been overplayed," said one foreign analyst, who asked not to be identified. "If you look at whether the JI are causing terror in the Philippines, then the answer is no."
SINISTER PLANS
Nevertheless, President Gloria Arroyo announced on Friday the government was "elevating the JI into our national threat spectrum," a day after the Philippines won a highly coveted seat on the UN Security Council.
"We have decided to update our priorities," she said. "The JI's sinister plans are both deadly and far-ranging, both intended to threaten our country and sow fear in the region."
Last Thursday, Arroyo paraded the latest catch in the war on terror -- Taufek Refke, who the government says is an Indonesian, JI's finance officer in Mindanao and a provider of information leading to the raid on the house in Cotabato.
No one disputes that the southern Philippines, a sprawling area that is home to about 5 million Muslims in the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country, is a hotbed of militancy.
The government has been fighting four Muslim rebel groups there for years, including the Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). A porous sea border with Indonesia means there is minimal state control over who comes and goes.
More questionable is the degree to which the Southeast Asian JI network has kept its grip there since 2000, when government troops overran MILF training camps believed to have been used by JI militants.
RUNNING OUT OF FRIENDS?
One reason behind the government's recent success may be that Mindanao is no longer such a friendly environment for JI.
The death earlier this year of elderly MILF leader Hashim Salamat and his replacement by the more moderate Al Haj Murad may have helped curb elements sympathetic to JI within the rebel group that is now focusing on peace talks with the government.
Andrew Tan, a Singapore-based security expert, said while JI remained a major threat throughout Southeast Asia, its Philippine operations had likely been weakened.
"The prospects for the JI in Mindanao have diminished because of Hashim's death," he said.
The shift could help explain the mysterious killing of suspected JI bombmaker Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi this month.
Authorities said they killed the fugitive in a shoot-out, but there are persistent reports he had been betrayed by a Muslim rebel group who handed him over to government forces.
Whatever the reasons, the timing of the killing just days before US President George W. Bush visited Manila raised suspicion about the authorities' tactics and information.
"The timing was just quite unbelievable," said the foreign analyst. "They [the military] are under pressure to show how active they are and how well they are doing."
The Cotabato City police chief was sacked after saying evidence found in the raid was planted. The city's mayor said the house did not appear to have been used in months.
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